


From the river

by MirandaTam



Series: Jedi Shmi AU [8]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, Jedi Shmi Skywalker, Lightsaber Combat, Mandalore, Mando'a, Politics, Ryloth | Twi'lek
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-21
Updated: 2018-04-16
Packaged: 2018-09-18 22:48:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 62,967
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9406217
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MirandaTam/pseuds/MirandaTam
Summary: Emotion, yet peace.The Clone Wars rage on, rage from within and rage from without; the shadow of the Sith lies over everything. Here's a question: What is a shadow?





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Me: I'm going to try to get a few chapters ahead before posting this one!  
> Me to me: Post the first chapter now.  
> Me: *is a weakling, posts the first chapter*
> 
> So, I didn't get a ton of writing done over winter break, for a few reasons: general apathy, the news about Carrie Fisher and Debbie Reynolds, the general shitshow that's been my country, minor interpersonal stuff, the works. However, I do have (at last!!) a general outline for how this next bit is going to work. Chapters will be roughly this length, but will switch between Shmi and her activities and the group I've lovingly deemed the "B-team." "Which B?" you may ask. "We have a few - Is it Beru, or Boba, or old Ben, or Depa Billaba, or Commander Bly, or one of those weird EU ones, or someone else?" "Yes," I reply. "Probably."
> 
> Title, as always - though I'm honestly surprised I found one, I'm running out of usable lyrics - from the Prince of Egypt, and from a quote we've seen before, no less.
> 
>  
> 
> _Moses, hear what I say. I have been a slave all my life. And God has never answered my prayers until now. God saved you from the river, He saved you in all your wanderings, and even now, He saves you from the wrath of Pharaoh. God will not abandon you. So don't you abandon us._

 

Shmi is a Jedi.

Some days she wakes up and wants to curse Qui-Gon Jinn for that, for the choices it has taken from her - though, she reminds herself, it has given her so many choices, it _was_ her choice, to stay, to learn, to teach.

But whatever paths she may have had in the past, her path now is set, and so she stands and braids her hair, then twists it up into her customary bun and lets the bitterness on the back of her tongue recede, lets the Force calm her.

Ani is on Tatooine. Her son is on Tatooine, Beru is on Tatooine. Thousands of clones are on Tatooine. Kelin is on Tatooine, watching over Ani and Beru, reliable and present, to clean up in the wake of the destruction the army brings.

Freedom is coming to Tatooine, Shmi can feel it like the electricity in the air before a storm.

Freedom is coming to Tatooine, and Shmi is not there.

She pulls on her tunic, her tabards, the dark brown that matches her mood of late. The Jedi serve the galaxy, the _whole_ galaxy; Shmi has chosen her path, and that path is to free the clones, that path is to destroy the Sith, that path does not lead towards Tatooine.

Shmi is a Jedi, and so she does what she has promised to do.

There’s a quiet knock on the door to her quarters, and Shmi gestures it open.

“General,” Slick says. “Good morning.”

“Good morning, Slick,” Shmi says. “Do they…” she pauses, not sure how to phrase it.

Slick nods. “We’ve got orders to be off to Ryloth within two hours; Generals Kenobi and Windu are also en route.”

“All right,” Shmi says. Ryloth. She can deal with Ryloth; there are people there, too, who need the help that she can bring.

Slick stays with her as she walks towards the mess hall, as she goes to the deck and watches the holograms herself, as the view outside streaks away to the blue of hyperspace. It’s mildly annoying and mildly comforting, but he refuses to leave her to her own devices ever since the incident on Vanqor; Shmi protests that it was hardly _her_ fault there had been a nest of gundarks, but Slick just gives her a look uncomfortably reminiscent of the looks she’s given Ani in the past.

“General,” Slick says quietly once they’re on their way. “Are you doing all right?”

“I’m doing fine, Slick,” she says, a little too flatly for it to be true.

Slick sighs. “You’re an idiot,” he tells her bluntly. “Nobody is buying that and you _know_ that nobody is buying that.”

She’s quiet for a few moments. Of course she knows - but what is she supposed to do? Grin and skip around like a five-year-old and ignore the fact that so many things are going so badly wrong?

“Things are getting better,” Slick says, speaking up after the silence stretches on a little too long. “Tatooine is on its way to freedom, and you know what, so are we.”

“There’s still so much–”

“ _So are we_ ,” Slick snaps, turning to face her directly, a glare on his face. “Kriff, General, you’re supposed to be _smart_ , not stumbling around like some sort of idiot pessimist. _I’m_ supposed to be the pessimist here. I hate being the optimist, it’s so _annoying_.”

Despite herself, Shmi’s lips twitch a little bit in what’s almost a laugh.

“But we can do this, General,” Slick says. “General Skywalker - the other one - he can handle himself, and if he can’t then at least Sarad can pick up the pieces. The situation sucks right now, but that’s one of the things Sarad always said. Said that _you_ taught her, so keep it in mind: we work hard, we don’t give up, we get our freedom.”

“We don’t wait around for a miracle,” Shmi says softly, finishing the saying herself. “We make our own miracles.”

Slick nods sharply, crosses his arms, then turns and stands beside her again, the both of them facing forwards, watching as the blue rings of hyperspace swirl around the ship.

Shmi _knows_ how she’s been lately, but now she looks deeper. She’s been hurting, deep inside, ever since this war started; it’s just been one blow after the other, and she’s picked herself up, time and time again. That doesn’t mean it doesn’t still hurt.

She’s tried to let it go before, all the hurt and pain and anger of the wars; she’s succeeded, even, but never for longer than an hour, a day, before she’s reminded and it all comes crashing down again.

Maybe she needs to take her own advice.

 _Patience_.

It’s a few hours before they reach Ryloth, but a productive few hours; strategies need to be planned, and during hyperspace travel is the only time they _know_ that they won’t be attacked by a Separatist skirmisher.

All the officers meet her on the deck, as is becoming standard. Slick, of course, and Rano appears right behind him; Lock has been on the bridge, and the captains Luna, Hex, Buff, and Trip show up one by one until everyone is there.

“We’ve got orders to provide ground support in the outlying regions as General Kenobi clears out the places where Separatist forces are concentrated,” Shmi says, pulling up a map on the holotable. “General Ima-Gun Di was in contact with local resistance fighters, but he was killed and the resistance fighters went into hiding; my main task will be to convince them to come _out_ of hiding and assist us.”

“So what we want to plan out is both the overall troop distribution and more specific techniques for Ryloth in particular,” Slick says, stepping forward and enlarging the map to the area they’ll be focusing on. “A few squads will go with General Skywalker to find and negotiate with the twi’leks, but the rest of the battalion will be spread out providing assistance to the 212th. Any initial suggestions?”

It’s taken them a few tries to get this routine really up and running, and Shmi’s still working on convincing the clones that she really _does_ want their suggestions.

Luna frowns a bit, looking over the map. “That’s a big area. We’re either going to be too spread out, or too clumped together; we can’t fully cover an area that size with the number of troopers we have.”

“Ryloth has a lot of dangerous wildlife,” Buff points out. “If we can tell where there’s, say, a nest of lyleks, we can say that any droids there are going to be so much scrap; can we narrow it down enough that way?”

“It’s a start,” Shmi says.

Slick catches her eye and she smiles a little bit, conceding the point.

It’s a start.

 

* * *

 

 

In the end, it’s easier to find Cham Syndulla than it might be otherwise; Shmi has a history of her own, after all, and Tatooine and Ryloth are not as different as they could be. Different climates, different histories, different statuses in the Republic - but there are slavers all the same, and something about that settles Shmi. Not calms her, exactly, but gives her a focus, a place to channel all this frustration and anger, all these emotions she can not let go of. The sun is blinding above her head, the earth is solid and hot beneath her feet, and she knows her path.

The twi’leks melt out of the forest in the wake of a droid attack - well, technically they had attacked the droids, but still.

Shmi recognizes Cham Syndulla from the briefing Mace had sent her; he stands at the front of the small group of twi’leks, eyeing her carefully.

“Cham Syndulla,” she says, then continues on in Ryl. “ _It is good to meet you; we have come to offer what assistance we can._ ”

He relaxes just a fraction; by speaking in Ryl, she’s indicated that she may be here as a Jedi, but she’s more than _just_ a Jedi.

“What _help_ the Jedi sent earlier failed,” he points out, harshly but true. “How are you supposed to be different?”

“Well, for one, we’ve finalized a supply chain of food to relieve everyone here,” she says. “And the fact that there are three legions, not just one, should do something to help.”

Cham shrugs. “So the Republic comes in with its legions and its battleships - and occupies our planet, strips it of all its riches. Why is _that_ desirable?”

“I don’t believe it will become a full occupation,” Shmi says, then raises her hand before he can scoff at her belief. “The war requires too many mobile troops to have any stationed for long in one place; but that isn’t enough reassurance for you. There are no guarantees in war, but I promise you this - if I survive, I will _not allow_ Ryloth to be occupied and held by Republic forces.”

Cham watches her, his eyes meeting hers solidly. He’s angry, this one, perhaps hasty, perhaps sometimes unthinking of consequences, but if nothing else - and there’s far more than _nothing_ else - he is deliberate.

“Scout the area,” he orders abruptly, turning to two of his warriors before turning back to Shmi. “You and your… troops… shall come back to our base. We can talk further there.”

Shmi inclines her head.

“Well, that was tense,” a cheerful voice says behind her.

Shmi sighs. “You don’t have to stand _literally_ right behind me at all times,” she says.

Captain Luna shrugs. “Slick and Rano both said that I needed to, or you’d do something stupid,” she says. “Though that might have been because you didn’t let either of them come with you.”

“Slick or Rano could have come with me if they’d spent less time arguing with each other about why the other _couldn’t_ come with me,” Shmi points out. “Rano listed such good reasons why Slick shouldn’t come, and Slick just _insisted_ that Rano should stay on the ship, who was I to deny them?”

She can’t see under Luna’s helmet, but the captain is probably rolling her eyes.

The twi’leks lead them through the forest - jungle, really - mostly in silence; Shmi’s troops, three squads, are louder walking through the underbrush, though not for lack of trying.

Luna stays, of course, _right behind her_ the whole time.

“I’m not going to _run off_ ,” Shmi says after Luna almost trips over her.

“That’s what you said on Vanqor,” one of the troopers - ’33, who hasn’t decided on a name yet - mutters.

Shmi sighs. “What happened on Vanqor was an accident,” she says.

“Was what happened on Muunilinst also an accident?” the medic, Ray, asks curiously.

“It’s sounding like you get into a lot of accidents,” one of the twi’leks says, and grins. “One has to start to wonder how _accidental_ they are.”

’33 nods solemnly. “One has to wonder why someone so obviously accident-prone and looking to stop getting into _accidents_ would refuse a totally reasonable measure to try and prevent those accidents.”

The twi’lek laughs. “Indeed,” she says. “I’m Alema. What are all your names?”

“Captain Luna.”

“I’m Ray.”

“Leck!”

“Tapper. This is Ron.”

“Ashi.”

“I don’t have a name yet, but I’m CT-5433, so you can call me ’33,” ’33 says.

Alema tilts her head a bit, her bright green lekku swinging. “Why don’t you have a name yet?”

“Nothing’s really fit so far,” ’33 says. “I don’t want to have a name that’s not really mine.”

“Hmm,” Alema says, before turning to look ahead. “We’re here.”

‘Here’ is something that looks like a simple rock formation, but as they draw closer, a crevice opens up in the rocks, leading to a tunnel that opens up into an underground compound.

“Welcome,” Cham says, drawing back to walk by Shmi and Luna. “Here is just one of our bases; we move every few days, or when it becomes necessary. This one has been safe for–”

“ _Mama mama mama mama mama!_ ” A small green child hits Alema’s knees, knocking her to the ground, before climbing into her lap.

Cham sighs. “Hera,” he says. “ _You’re supposed to stay underground until it’s safe._ ”

Hera shrugs. “ _I was bored_ ,” she says. “ _Besides, it’s totally safe! There aren’t any droids for miles_.”

“ _That doesn’t mean it’s safe_ ,” Alema reminds her daughter.

“I remember that age,” Shmi says quietly, a little amused. “The next few years are going to be worse.”

“Oh, joy,” Alema says, then picks up Hera and stands with a little grunt of effort. “Come on in, General Skywalker, Captain Luna, everyone; it may be safe, but that doesn’t mean it’ll _stay_ safe.”

Hera sticks her tongue out; it looks like she doesn’t know Basic very well yet, but Alema’s tone makes it clear what her real meaning is.

“You have children?” Cham asks as they descend into the cave, though it looks far less cave-like after they’re down a few meters; the walls and ceiling are smooth plasteel. “I thought Jedi were forbidden.”

“Just the one,” Shmi says. “Ani was born years before we became Jedi, but Jedi aren’t forbidden children, or bodily pleasure; just romance and attachment. And even that’s flexible.” It hadn’t been flexible when she’d first come to the Order, and if Shmi accomplishes nothing else in her life, she can let herself be proud of that.

Cham nods. “Why don’t your men–” he pauses and glances at Luna. “Why don’t your troopers go relax? We do not have quite enough food to spare, but the journey through the jungle was long, and we have places to rest.”

Captain Luna makes some quick hand-signs, then turns to Shmi and Cham. “The troops will gladly take a chance to rest a bit,” she says. “I’m staying with General Skywalker.”

“To make sure no accidents happen,” Alema says cheerfully.

Shmi resigns herself to a life of being teased. What had happened Vanqor and Muunilist _had_ been accidents. Mostly.

She’s glad none of them have brought up what had happened at the Kuat Shipyards, though; that had _definitely_ been on purpose.

Cham and Alema - and Hera - lead them through a few rooms until they get to a medium-sized room with a deactivated holotable in the center. Hera pulls up enough chairs for all of them, though Luna remains standing even when Shmi gestures at a chair; Alema snickers a bit and sits perched on the back of Cham’s chair.

“ _Hera, sweetheart, can you go ask Reess how the production is going?_ ” Cham asks.

Hera glances between them suspiciously, then sighs and nods. “ _I’ll go be out of the way_ ,” she says, and makes a face.

“So,” Alema says when it’s just the four adults in the room. “Shmi Skywalker.”

“Shmi of Tatooine,” Cham says. “ _And_ of the Jedi.”

“Yes,” Shmi says, and waits.

“How do we know we can trust you?” Cham says. “Fighting the droids in space, that is one thing; here on the ground, risking the lives of our families, our people, is another. The Separatists come and take all they can rip out of the ground; the Republic comes and takes what the Separatists have and then some. Why should we put up with this? Orn Free Taa sits rich and happy in his Senate seat, and we have no voice when our people are taken as slaves. What has the Republic done for us?”

Shmi nods, which she can tell they aren’t expecting. “The Republic has done very little for you,” she admits. “While it’s a governing body meant to provide assistance and safety, freedom and assistance, all it’s done is take and take and ignore whatever real troubles you might be facing. You think I don’t know where you’re coming from? I’m from _Tatooine_ ,” she says.

“The Republic is trying to take over Tatooine,” Alema says, her eyes sharp. “When it’s through, Tatooine may be part of the Republic - no doubt they’ll find something to exploit from there, too.”

“That’s not going to happen,” Shmi says.

Cham scoffs. “Why not?”

Shmi’s smile is sharp as a blade. “Because that’s my son leading the campaign on Tatooine,” she says. “As he makes his way across the planet, he’s contacting leaders of the underground, of the freed communities; he’s ousting the Hutts, but in their place there’s a rudimentary government ready to go. And once those leaders are in place, and the Hutts are gone, Tatooine will have a representative in the Senate.”

“The Senate’s done _so_ much good here on Ryloth, after all,” Alema murmurs, sarcastic.

“The Senate barely helps out wealthy worlds like Naboo,” Shmi agrees. “But that’s changing, isn’t it?”

Alema frowns. “And how will the Republic becoming more militaristic, more _involved_ , stop our planet from being exploited?”

“We’ll change the Senate,” Shmi says.

“… Change the Senate,” Cham says disbelievingly. “Oh, of course, it’s that simple.”

“Of course it’s not simple. None of this is simple,” Shmi says, and stands, pacing over to the holotable. “Once I’m done fighting a war - if I am ever done fighting a war - I’m planning to attempt to change thousands of years of beauracracy. It may not work; it may make things worse.” She pauses, then sighs, closes her eyes. “What choice do I have? Let things remain the same? No. I try to make things better, and I _keep_ trying to make things better, bit by bit. Step by step, droplet by droplet, we persevere. We have patience, we have strength, we survive to fight another day. And one day…”

“One day may we all be free,” Luna finishes quietly, the phrase rolling off her tongue easily. Beru has taught them well.

Cham and Alema both stare at Luna, and she grins back at them; Cham glances up at Alema.

Alema pauses, then nods once, decisively.

Cham turns back to Shmi, still standing by the holotable. “So,” he says. “What is the plan?”

 

* * *

 

 

Mace Windu arrives a few hours later, once Cham and Alema are satisfied with Shmi’s outline of the plan. That takes a few hours, though, and in a few hours there’s quite a bit of down time. Rest time.

 _Ideally_ , it would be rest time.

After about two hours, Shmi decides to sit back and watch her troops handle the problem; the problem in question being three twi’lek children.

“What a wonderful learning opportunity,” Alema says, sitting in the corner that Shmi makes her way to.

“You just wanted a break from dealing with them yourself,” Shmi says.

Alema nods, completely unrepentant. “Was yours ever so… rowdy?” she asks, eyeing the destruction the children have managed to wreak.

Shmi sighs. “Ani podraced.”

“So it’s genetic, then?” ’33 asks. “The complete insanity?”

Looking around the room, Shmi sees Luna chasing one of the children, the small yellow-orange one - right before she gets tackled by Hera and the third child, and they all go down in a pile. Well, Luna isn’t really one to ever back down from a challenge, Shmi thinks, then glances up at ’33 and raises an eyebrow.

He shrugs. “The captain wanted to play with the kids, but somebody still needs to stay with you. And I’m tired - those kids are taking on a squad and a half and _winning_.”

“And here I’d hoped that Hera would grow up to be less militant than Cham or I,” Alema says, eyeing her daughter. Then she switches her gaze over to ’33. “You were raised to be a warrior, yes?”

’33 nods slowly.

“Most children are not,” Alema says. “Most children are raised carefree, joyous, laughing and playing in whatever they decide to laugh and play in, be it sunshine or mud or toothpaste. On some planets… well. On Ryloth, they laugh and play, but they aren’t free of cares; they know fear. Caution is necessary. Hera knows how to break an adult’s grip on an arm, how to get free and get away and call for help. Hera was raised with fear, and I would see no other children grow that way.”

So many already have, Shmi thinks - so many more will. That’s the way of wars, the way of slavers, the way of those who would bring harm to innocents. So many, so many are hurt, and Shmi is sitting here talking instead of _fixing_ it–

 _Patience,_ Shmi, she tells herself. You know this in your bones. Step by step. Drop by drop.

Alema says, “What were you raised with?”

“Discipline,” ’33 says.

Alema hums a bit. “And yet, you paint your armor,” she says.

’33 frowns a bit. “That has nothing to do with _discipline_ , though,” he says. “Discipline to your commanders, discipline in the army where it’s the only way to survive - identity to your brothers, to yourself. _Cin vhetin liser sarade_.”

Shmi only knows a few words of Mando’a, and most of those are swears. Part of her itches to learn the language that her troops keep dropping into, but she knows that it may be more comforting for them to have a way to keep her out of the conversation.

It seems that Alema doesn’t know Mando’a either, from the way she looks at ’33 with a question on her face; he flushes a bit.

“Sorry, I forgot that not everybody… anyways, it means, basically, even a blank slate can bloom. Even if you start out as nobody - and we all started out as nobody - you can _become_ somebody, if you let yourself.” He runs his hand over the pattern of criss-crossing lines spanning one of his upper arms.

“You’re all very mandalorian,” Alema says.

’33 shrugs. “Not all of us,” he says. “This legion, maybe a little more, because of - a few reasons.”

It was something to cling to - Slick’s talked to her about it, how hard it is to go from being called a _thing_ to being called a _person_ , and how mandalorian culture left room for that possibility; it was a path that made sense for many, after what Krell had left in his wake.

Luna collapses in front of the three of them.

“That’s it,” she announces. “I’m done.”

“Aw, come on, Captain,” ’33 says, a grin on his face. “You can’t let three shiny, tiny civillians get the better of you.”

Luna just groans. Her helmet is off, lost at some point in the ruckus; her hair is just brushing her shoulders, non-regulation length, covering the small fractal pattern she has tattooed brushing her hairline.

“ _Even the small are vicious_ ,” Alema says, in Ryl, then repeats it again in basic. “Did you have a fun time with the children, Captain?”

“ _Stupid-face_ ,” Luna replies, also in Ryl.

“My face is very smart, Captain,” Alema replies, unbothered. “It is your face that is the stupid one.”

With a sigh, Luna picks herself up, then sits cross-legged on the floor. “Is that what that means? The shinies - the kids kept saying it.”

Alema raises her brow. “You pick up languages fast.”

“Just the insults,” Luna admits. “It’s easy to tell by the tone when people are trying to be rude, so then it’s easier to throw it right back at them.”

Shmi smiles a bit. “I should teach you some Huttese,” she says. “It’s quite a… creative language.”

Luna grins. “I’d like that, sir,” she says. “And in return we’ll teach you Mando’a.”

“I…” Shmi pauses. “If you want to talk between yourselves - you should have some privacy.”

Luna and ’33 glance at each other.

“You say it,” Luna says. “You’re better with words.”

’33 nods, then turns back to Shmi. “We’ve got places to talk privately,” he says. “You’ve made sure of that. If we think we need to keep something from you, we can do that. And we know that we may have to - you’re a Jedi, a General, and that means you sometimes have other obligations. But you’re also one of us. You eat with us, you fight with us, you guard our backs and we guard yours, however hard you may make it sometimes.”

Luna nods emphatically.

“You may not be one of our vode,” ’33 continues, a bit more quietly. “But you’re our general - you’re _ours_. _Aliit ori’shya tal’din_.”

“Family is more than bloodline,” Luna says.

Shmi swallows. “Thank you,” she says.

“ _Vor entye_ ,” ’33 says, with the tone of a teacher.

“ _Vor entye_ ,” Shmi repeats.

“ _Ba’gedet’ye_ ,” Luna replies, and grins.

“General Skywalker!”

Shmi looks up, the grin dropping off her face.

There’s a trooper standing in the doorway in colors she doesn’t recognize - though after a moment her mind connects that pale red with the 91st mobile reconnaisance corps, Mace Windu’s command.

“General Windu is here?” she asks, and the trooper nods.

“I’m supposed to take you to him, sir,” the trooper says.

Shmi stands, brushing herself off; Luna stands with her, then goes to retrieve her helmet.

“I’ll stay here,” Alema says softly. “I think Cham can handle what needs handling, for now.”

’33, likewise, doesn’t budge; Shmi gets the sense that he has something to say to Alema, or she has something to say to him.

With a deep breath, Shmi straightens her back and reminds herself that she’s a general now. Not like she could forget, but it’s a different face she has to put on, standing up for her troops, than the face she wears sitting among them.

“Lead on,” she tells the clone from the 91st, and follows.

 

* * *

 

 

The next morning she meets Mace for pre-dawn katas, up on the top of the rock formation hiding the base. They warm up silently, going through basic stretches until Shmi feels warm even in the cool, dark air.

Last night’s discussion and planning had been brief; Shmi hadn’t realized how late it had gotten, watching the children play. Ryloth’s sun had likely set long before Mace had arrived, without them knowing, but such were the perils of an underground base.

She wishes, though, that they’d been willing to stay up later than they had. She has some… _concerns_ about the plan Mace had laid out.

Mace meets her eyes and nods slightly; he’s willing to answer her questions, but preferably after katas.

It’s all right; she’s patient enough for that.

Shmi’s usual routine would be familiar, comforting: stepping through the makashi katas that she has learned from Dooku, practicing the shii-cho that all Temple younglings learn, sprinkling in some of Obi-Wan’s favored soresu if she feels like it.

Her usual routine is not up to the harsh standards of wartime. Makashi is for offense, for defense, but it is for _lightsaber_ combat. Shmi has been lucky so far, facing droids mostly at melee range; using makashi against blasters at range is a good way of getting shot. Some hint of that touches a chord in the Force, but nothing distinct enough to be a true warning, so she lets it slide away for now. But she does need to keep from getting shot, so soresu and djem-so it is, and the katas leave less-used muscle groups aching.

The sun rises, the sky lightens, and her makashi feels sharp and biting; soresu feels like a gift. Shmi knows a few djem-so katas, from Anakin and his practices, and she goes through them, each twist of her lightsaber for another person she has to defend.

Now is not the time to remind herself of patience; now is when she feels it most, with the world quiet and the air cold and sharp. The world seems to lighten, seems to ask _what can you do_ , and she breathes and looks up at the blueing sky and thinks, _this_.

Hints of adrenaline help her feel alive after the fog of sleep; she is present, solid. Perhaps being on a spaceship all the time isn’t very healthy, she thinks in the morning light.

Mace is watching her.

She turns and faces him, a question in her eyes.

“Here,” Mace says, and gestures for her to hold her lightsaber the way he is - a stance closer to ataru than anything else, but still subtly different.

Shmi copies his stance, feeling in the Force where its balance lies, where her weight must rest; she follows him as he shows her the rest of the kata, moving through a form she has to admit she recognizes.

They don’t talk, though, outside of Mace’s instruction as she steps through the kata two, three, four more times.

“Good,” he says finally, a hint of a smile on his face.

She doesn’t smile back. “I was not aware that you were willing to teach those katas.”

He stares back at her for a moment, both their faces stone. Shmi turns and faces the sunrise, then turns again to the side so she isn’t blinded; she kneels, hard stone beneath her, and takes deep breaths. Mace kneels beside her.

The world is quiet. “This war has brought me closer to falling than I have ever been,” she says.

“Even as a slave?” he asks; Mace has never shied away from rude or blunt questions.

“Even as a slave myself,” she says.

He sighs, and for a brief moment, the world is again calm and still. Never for long, though - “The first kata of the vaapad,” he says. “It may take you closer to falling, or further from it. You know this, though - Shmi, you’re as much a Jedi Master as Yoda, and you have been since before you let yourself be knighted. Listen to what the Force is telling you, and you may hear what I did.”

The Force barely speaks in whispers more often than not, but here - the world is calm.

“Why,” Shmi says quietly, “Does the Force think it necessary that I learn the vaapad?”

That’s not the question Mace answers, not directly. “Last night, when we talked about the plans to take Ryloth, I mentioned where the 144th would be stationed. I didn’t mention where _you_ would be stationed.”

Shmi frowns. “I’d noticed.” Cham and Alema hadn’t, which is likely why Mace hadn’t stated it outright; it’s awkward to remove the one negotiating an alliance halfway through the negotiations.

“The Council wants you hunting Grievous,” Mace says.

“Oh,” Shmi says.

Mace glances over at her and raises an eyebrow.

Shmi has a brief internal debate about whether to be careful or blunt, but finally decides that Mace has always preferred bluntness. “Is the Council out of its mind?” she asks.

Mace snorts. “What makes you ask? This time in particular.”

“I am a general, yes,” Shmi says. “But I’m far from one of the best warriors in the Order. I’m a _negotiator_ , my strengths are talking people down and forging alliances, not going on wild womp rat-chases across the galaxy trying to defeat a general who’s killed, what, ten Jedi already?”

“Shmi,” Mace says, his voice tired. “You’re a Jedi Master, one of our most trusted despite your extremely unorthodox beginnings; you’ve changed the Order more than any of us would have imagined possible, opened up debates about attachment and emotion and truth. Kallei, who was my own padawan, would not be a knight if not for you. Your strengths are interpersonal, people trusting you and being inspired by you, and _none of us_ want to risk losing that. But - Shmi, you are one of two Jedi Masters specializing in makashi.”

Shmi takes a deep breath to argue, then lets it all out.

Pieces click together in her mind, hints of the Force and things she’s seen.

“Makashi is the form that Grievous’s skills are based off of,” she realizes tiredly. “He kills Jedi like it’s sport, but he runs from clones with blasters at a range. On Hypori, he ran from me - he saw my stance and recognized it.”

Mace dips his head in a slight nod. “Master Dooku has looked at footage and confirmed our suspicions,” he says. “He says it’s a bastardized form, what with the, well, two to four arms and who knows how many lightsabers, interspersed with those kicks of his and that spinning lightsaber trick.”

“And the best defense against makashi is offensive makashi,” Shmi murmurs. Technically, overwhelming force is the best counter to makashi, but it’s plain to see that Grievous would take a lot of force to overwhelm. “Dooku can’t be spared from wherever he is?”

“He has an eye for strategy that’s won us dozens of battles so far,” Mace says. “He’s probably the best at predicting what the Separatists and Vulsion are going to throw at us next.”

Shmi could argue some more, but she won’t. Facing Grievous will give her far fewer opportunities to help clones escape the war, but leaving someone else to face the cyborg will mean more clones dying, and will leave Grievous still alive, still killing more - be they clones, Jedi, or just civillians.

There’s no guarantee she won’t leave Grievous still alive, still killing. But - there is no one else.

“Very well,” Shmi says quietly. “Although I’ll need to bring a few squads from the 144th. They don’t like letting me out of their sight.”

Mace nods. “If nothing else goes wrong, you’ll be leaving this afternoon,” he says. “I’m having a holocron containing knowledge of the vaapad sent to you, but in the meantime…”

She doesn’t _want_ to learn the vaapad.

“Instruction is always better in person,” she agrees, and stands when Mace does.

“What do you know of the vaapad’s philosophy?” he asks, and takes a stance.

Shmi copies them; it seems that they’ll be moving and speaking at the same time. Dooku had always favored still discussion, then silent motion; but Yoda had always favored unpredictability, so this at least will not be a challenge.

“Form VII is filled with fury and malignant grace,” Shmi says, following Mace’s motions. “Juyo, the original form, is ancient, and dangerous enough as it is; your vaapad takes that a step further.”

“Vaapad channels darkness,” Mace says. “You know how to be restrained, how to be careful; vaapad is not restrained and is not careful, but the key is that you must still _have restraint_ , or it will overwhelm you.”

Ani is facing the sands and the storms of Tatooine; Shmi thinks of the burning suns of her home, and how simple grains of sand can strip flesh down to the bone, and understands more than she would like to.

“One must be restrained, but also uninhibited,” Shmi says, bringing her lightsaber up in what her instincts insist is a wild arc, leaving her far too open; such is the nature of vaapad. “Careful, but relentless.”

“Exactly,” Mace says quietly.

The sun rises, filling the landscape with light, as Shmi learns the form of ferocity.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter takes place, timeline-wise, roughly at the same time as "Here in this burning sand," during the last week that Anakin, Beru, and Ahsoka are on Tatooine.
> 
> Most info about the vaapad is pulled from Wookieepedia; the "fury and malignant grace" quote especially, which I thought was just too beautifully phrased to not include.
> 
> "Alema" means, in Ryl or Twi'leki, "Protector."
> 
>  **Mando'a**  
>  Aliit ori'shya tal'din - Family is more than bloodline  
> Ba'gedet'ye - You're welcome  
> Cin vhetin liser sarade* - Even a blank slate can bloom  
> Vor entye - Thank you
> 
> *"sarade" is my own creation, taking the noun "sarad" (which should be familiar by now) and turning it into the verg "sarader" (to flower/to blossom) and then conjugating it. I think.
> 
> Unfortunately, I haven't been able to find any good source for actual Ryl/Twi'leki words, outside of names, so that means we get awkward italics. Oh well. Maybe it's for the better; I still sort of want to fight the varied mishmash of people who have created Mando'a (and "Concordian" :P :P :P).


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Intrigue and politics in the Galactic Senate are vital to the war effort, but not everything can be done from Coruscant, and the Council of Neutral Systems may have its own part to play.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just realized that I forgot to check "this work has multiple chapters." Oops. Hopefully people will see this...
> 
> Like I said, we'll have chapters alternating which group we're following; next chapter will be back to Shmi and her... situation.
> 
> Also a note that POV alternates for this group, changing at scene breaks.

 

Senator Amidala’s apartments are lavish, decorated with draping cloths and shiny chrome fastenings; they’re very appropriate for a Naboo senator, each room meant to evoke a specific meaning, each room meant to evoke a specific feeling. Of course they are; these rooms are hardly private, meant for meetings and discussions and meals that other senators, other politicans, are invited to.

Padmé’s room is far more reasonable. A soft bed, some decorative pieces; a few wall-hangings, to give the room life.

What she likes best about it, though, is probably the fact that it’s private.

No doubt there are listening devices scattered by various people throughout Senator Amidala’s apartments; her security team finds new ones each day, and has to make the decision about whether to remove them or leave them, and which option would give them a better advantage politically, whether by spreading misinformation to her opponents or by reassuring possible allies of the truth.

No such bugs litter Padmé’s room; if any were found, which they never are, they’d be disposed of immediately. Important discussions don’t take place in Padmé’s room; hardly anyone goes _in_ Padmé’s room, save for Padmé herself and her handmaidens.

And, of course, the unusually handsome Jedi Knight who’s standing in her quarters, somehow having bypassed all her security.

“Anakin,” Padmé says softly, and reaches out to him.

He grins and sweeps her up into a hug. “Padmé. I missed you.”

She breathes in deeply, relaxing in his arms in a way she hasn’t been able to relax in months; he smells like a hint of mechanical grease and fresh soap, but beneath that there’s another warm, dusty smell. “The war not enough to keep your full attention?” she teases.

“I can focus on more than one thing at once,” he protests. “It’s hardly an either-or situation, _Senator_.”

Padmé laughs. “I suppose I can see your point,” she says. “I’ve been bogged down in Senate meetings and complaint commitees for hours… and I couldn’t stop thinking about how you were going to be home soon.” She hadn’t really meant to say that; she was going to say something joking, like thinking of food, or sleep, or - or _something_. But it’s true; she’s missed him.

Anakin drops a light kiss on her forehead; when she looks up, there’s a hint of face-paint on his lips.

Padmé laughs a tiny bit, then reaches up and brushes it away; it doesn’t even occur to her how intimate that is until her fingers are on his lips.

“I’m sorry,” she says, and pulls away.

“No, don’t be sorry,” he says instantly. “Not - if you don’t want this, Padmé, then say so. But don’t apologize for–”

“Not that,” she says, and blinks away the hint of wetness in her eyes. “The Senate. You won, you defeated Gardulla, but it was so close; I’m sorry I couldn’t get them to give you longer than a week.” It makes her coldly furious inside, how much she’d had to fight for even that much; they’re at _war_ , and all the senators are thinking of is how they can protect their own interests, their own planets, as if they’re not supposed to serve the entire galaxy.

Anakin steps forward, back into her personal space, and she looks up at him. “I won’t lie, I wish we’d had more time,” he says softly. “But we had our week, and we _won_. Gardulla is dead, and Tatooine is free; I’ve been dreaming of this moment since I was a child, and it’s… it’s _here_.”

There’s a sense of wonder in his voice that almost breaks her heart; she reaches in and holds him tight.

They stand there for a few moments, just holding each other, just being there.

“You leave tomorrow, don’t you,” Anakin says quietly.

Padmé nods, knowing he’ll feel it; her head is pressed against his chest.

He sighs, a deep inhale and exhale of breath. “And I’m only here to formalize Ahsoka’s apprenticeship. It’s going to be months before we can see each other again, isn’t it?” His frustration is evident in his tone.

“We’ll come up with some excuse,” Padmé insists. “There has to be something.” She grins. “I need to meet your new padawan sometime, after all.”

“You’ll love her,” Anakin says, grinning down at her. “She’s brilliant.”

“I’m sure I will,” Padmé says - she’s heard about some of what had happened on Tatooine, both from Senate debriefs and from the messages she and Anakin have been exchanging. Ahsoka Tano sounds like a very interesting young Jedi, one who Padmé is excited to meet.

“Where are you going?” Anakin asks. “Another conflict to try and deescalate?”

“Fortunately, no,” Padmé says. Whenever she’s not in a Senate meeting, she’s flying across the galaxy, trying to soothe over conflicts before they begin; this is… not the safest job for anyone, but Padmé refuses to stand idle in the face of so much conflict. “They want me to meet with the Council of Neutral Systems. We’re flying to Mandalore to meet with Duchess Kryze.”

Holding each other as close as they are, she can feel Anakin’s pause. “I’ve heard a lot about Mandalore from Obi-Wan. Will you be safe?”

Padmé… doesn’t know. “Of course,” she says confidently. “On top of my own security detail, there’s the Senate’s; and Mister Fett has offered his own skills to my security detail as well.”

Anakin pulls back so that they can look each other in the eye. “ _Jango Fett_ is offering to go to Mandalore to be your bodyguard? Are you serious?”

“I’d hardly say it if I wasn’t,” she points out. “I gather he has some… unfinished business there, I guess.”

“I,” Anakin says, then hesitates and sighs. “I need to talk to Obi-Wan about that. I don’t know if I trust Fett.”

Padmé raises her eyebrows. “Because you think he’s going to betray us, or because of Beru?”

“The second one,” Anakin says, entirely unashamed. “Obviously.”

Padmé snorts undelicately; she’d never let herself do that in front of the Senate, all precise and beautiful, but with Anakin she can just be herself. “Obviously,” she echoes. “But you should talk to Obi-Wan, to reassure yourself. And… have you told him about this, yet? About us?”

Anakin winces. “There just hasn’t been time.”

There really hasn’t been, Padmé knows; between none of them wanting to disturb Obi-Wan’s recovery, then Anakin shipping out with Knight Tachi, then Tatooine… all the holocalls and communications he’s had have been public, shared with the Council and the Senate, except for the ones he’d managed to sneak directly to her. But still, he needs to talk to Obi-Wan, soon.

“I will tell him,” Anakin promises. “When we have time.”

Not until I absolutely have to, Padmé translates, and sighs. “All right,” she says. Then she closes her eyes - she wants to spend the whole night like this, with Ani, safe and warm and thinking of nothing but each other. But there’s a war on; they don’t have that luxury. “You had some data from Gardulla’s palace that you wanted me to look through?”

A tiny frown crosses Anakin’s face. “Yeah. On this datastick, here.” He bends down and pulls it out of a hidden compartment in his boot, of all places. “I…” he swallows, and Padmé realizes that how he looks right now is _scared_. “Don’t let anyone see what’s on this. Not your guards, not your handmaidens. Not even if Master Yoda comes asking for what you know, don’t tell _anyone_.”

Padmé pauses, halfway through reaching forward to take the datastick. “Not even your mother?”

“Maybe my mother,” Anakin concedes. “But seriously, Padmé, me and Beru have put all we can piece together on this, and the shape it makes… it isn’t pretty.” He must see the look in her eyes, because he adds, “You don’t have to do this, you know. You’re doing so much already, and here we are asking you to do more. We can handle analysis if–”

Padmé places a single finger on his lips, and he goes silent; she reaches forward and takes the datastick. It’s light, in her hand; strangely light for the weight of information it carries.

“I want to help,” she says softly. “I want to help you. I want to help the Jedi. I want to help the millions of clones who are being unlawfully forced to fight. Doing this research may be dangerous, but don’t make me remind you how many assassination attempts I’ve survived already; even if whoever’s behind this discovers what I’m doing, it’ll hardly put me in greater danger. And that’s _if_ they realize what I’m doing. I can be sneaky when I want to, you know.”

Anakin frowns, reaching out and caressing her cheek. “Can you be sneaky _enough_?” he asks softly. “Padmé, if the Sith find you…”

She smiles, then stretches up and places a light kiss on his lips. “Chancellor Palpatine was Naboo’s own senator, and he didn’t know which handmaiden was actually the Queen until my reign ended,” she tells him. “I can keep a secret. Dormé and the others can keep secrets - no, no, I won’t tell them any of this,” she rushes to add. “But if I’m staying up late analyzing data, or keeping secrets of my own, they won’t tell a soul.”

Anakin lets out a long sigh. “All right,” he says. “I trust you.”

Padmé feels a wicked smile curve her lips. “Do you?” she asks.

“… Yes,” Anakin says slowly.

“Good,” she says, pressing him backwards gently, one step, then two steps - then the backs of his knees hit the bed. “Because I have some ideas about how to spend the rest of the night.”

 

* * *

 

 

The ship jerks a bit as it touches down on the landing platform, its rumble quieting to silence. This is the trickiest part of this little adventure so far, with the most ways it could go wrong. He’ll have to follow the Senator to wherever she’ll be staying, surrounded by both her own guards and their host’s, without being seen. He’ll have to find a safe place to sleep, somewhere that won’t be checked over by guards, but something that he can actually reach. He’ll have to stay close enough to hear what’s going on, but far enough away that he doesn’t get caught, not by any of the guards, not by the Senator, and not by his buir.

Boba’s just going to have to be careful, following Senator Amidala and his buir all the way to Mandalore.

Senator Amidala’s ship has been cleared to land directly in Sundari, eliminating one barrier, but that does mean it’ll be watched more carefully. He’s going to have to blend in in plain sight, among people who, for the most part, all know each other.

He hears the ship’s ramp lowering, and that’s his cue.

Boba steps out from the little alcove where he’s been hiding, brushing over his hair to make sure it’s Naboo-standards of neat, and heads towards the ship’s galley. _Nobody_ can keep track of all the helpers in a kitchen.

It means he’s immediately loaded down with a platter of fruit, of course, but that’ll just help people ignore what he actually looks like; nobody notices one boy with a blaster among many similar boys with blasters, he’d learned on Kamino, and nobody notices one server with a platter of food among many. He follows the other servers out of the ship and down the ramp, keeping his pose perfect and his expression as calm as theirs - there’s a lot to be said for learning how to blend in, learning how to match your body language with others.

They don’t follow after the Senator and the Duchess, of course, which is a relief - his father is in that group, and Jango Fett will probably notice him before Boba can even blink. Instead, the servers head towards what’ll be the Senator’s rooms in the palace, to arrange a light dinner for her after her preliminary meeting with the Duchess.

The rooms are opulent, of course, though not as fancy as some of the Naboo designs Boba’s seen; they spend a few minutes arranging the food optimally.

Boba would _love_ to drop a bug somewhere here, letting him listen in to whatever the Senator does, but he doesn’t know how often they check for bugs here, or how thoroughly. He can’t afford to let them know that _anyone_ ’s following him - from there, it’ll be just a short jump to his identity.

He breaks off from the servers as they make their way back to the ship and starts wandering around the palace.

The diagrams publicly available are inaccurate, of course, to discourage assassins and spies, but they give Boba a good starting point - any place on those plans that looks like a good hiding space is probably checked regularly by the guards. Mando’ade aren’t stupid, even if they’ve sworn themselves to pacifism.

It’s easy enough to avoid their patrols, as loud as they are; the security cameras are harder. There are whole sections of the palace that Boba can’t get to right now, with how intense the security is; those are going to have to wait until he’s had a chance to hack into the security systems.

Wandering through the palace, though, is still… an experience. He knows the smooth, bright white curved walls of Kamino, the durasteel grey architecture of Coruscant; he can paint Tatooine’s houses in his mind, pale warm clay and bright sand.

Mandalore’s architecture is beautiful, yes, stained glass and alabaster walls, but the palace is unlike any building Boba has seen before.

There’s a sniper angle to watch for, he thinks, but then he rounds the corner and sees that the sniper would be in plain view of anyone watching for them.

That glass could be shattered, become an entry point, become potential weapons - but no, the glass’s pattern is lined with beskar iron; even if the glass was shattered, nobody could get through, and the glass shards would be too small to use as weapons.

This hallway could be a good choke-point, if it weren’t for the five separate hidden doors he can feel in the wall’s framework. He’s willing to bet that they all lead to different places, too.

Boba slowly, delightedly, comes to the realization that the palace was built with the expectation - the certainty - that it would be a battleground. Every aspect does its best to combine form and function, with the _form_ being beauty hiding danger, and the _function_ being not only defense but offense.

Boba is mandalorian in his blood, mandalorian by his upbringing - it hits him hard that this palace was made by people like him, people who fought and died and lived by the same tenents he does, people who wore beskar’gam.

Not that he really has his own beskar’gam yet - he’s got his training armor, but he’s still growing; no sense in getting beskar iron armor until he won’t need to replace it every few years. And… not that he was able to bring even his training armor with him on this mission, with how he had to stow away.

But that doesn’t matter; now that he knows how the palace is laid out, he can find a place to hide.

There’s a nice alcove near the Senator’s rooms that leads into a secret passage that isn’t booby-trapped, as far as he can tell; he slips in there and, after checking it over, lets himself relax.

Part of him wants to know what the _hell_ he thinks he’s doing, sneaking around in the Duchess of Mandalore’s palace; of all the places in the galaxy, this is the one where he’s most likely to get caught.

The other part of him knows that his buir is going to do something stupid again. Whatever Kenobi said to Jango, it made him volunteer to guard Senator Amidala when she came here to discuss something with one of the planets at the head of the Alliance of Neutral Systems.

Boba gets why the Duchess makes his buir angry - Jango feels like she’s betraying mandalorian ideals, stealing their heritage from their people. But Boba’s not just mandalorian; he was raised knowing stories from the desert, too. And those stories… those stories make him want to find out what’s really going on, here, because however much the Duchess talks about peace, her palace is built for war.

He’s not going to get any answers staying on Coruscant, though - not answers about Mandalore, not answers about how his buir really feels about all this. Coming here, though, has only given him more questions.

 

* * *

 

 

Padmé keep her political face on as they go through all the standard greetings; it’s not that she minds the process, exactly. It’s more that it’s easier to do on autopilot, especially when she can tell that Duchess Kryze is also going through similar motions.

Process may be boring, and they may both agree that this dance of etiquette is far from necessary, but it is helpful for delaying confrontations; none of them needs to acknowledge the bantha in the room.

Or, rather, the mandalorian in the room; Jango Fett stands silently beside Padmé’s head of security.

Duchess Kryze - Duchess Satine, as Padmé is told to call her - very carefully does not look at him; he is very carefully still, unthreatening.

It’s far from the most tense meeting Padmé’s been to, but it certainly ranks high on the list.

“Senator Amidala,” Duchess Satine says finally. “Your trip has, no doubt, been long and tiring; my attendants will show you and your people to the rooms that have been set aside for you, so that you may relax and recover.”

Padmé dips into a slight bow. “Thank you, Your Grace. The journey was long, but worthwhile, and we look forward to meeting with you further.”

Niceties exchanged, Padmé and the others are led through the palace’s winding hallways to a series of suites already prepared for their use. Platters of food are laid out on the tables, arranged precisely by the serving staff that accompanies Senator Amidala everywhere.

Padmé glances at the servant stationed slightly off and to the left; his duty is to wait on her if she needs anything, but also to ensure that everything is in place, that there is no chance her food or rooms have been tampered with. Checking with him is a likely unnecessary precaution, but her handmaidens insist, so–

He shakes his head, ever so slightly.

The food and the rooms are not necessarily safe.

Padmé’s stance does not change, her steps don’t slow down or speed up; her hands do not clench and her chest does not tighten.

She’s scared anyways.

The Sith _can’t_ have already noticed. She hasn’t even opened Anakin’s datastick yet, hasn’t even glanced over the contents; how could they _know_?

Cordé places a hand on Padmé’s arm. She and Dormé had seen the warning as well, of course; Padmé turns to face them.

“My Lady,” she says. “You must be tired; let’s get you out of those official clothes and into something more comfortable before you go to sleep.”

It’s a code, as is everything they say; Cordé has a hunch that things are all right, but she wants to be “more comfortable” before they let down their guard.

“That sounds wonderful,” Padmé says, and means it. She turns to her guards. “The adjacent rooms should have quarters for you all; this journey must have been wearing on you as well. We’re safe enough here; go take your rest.”

None of the other guards know that something’s wrong, of course. They likely don’t even know her attendants’ full roles, let alone all of the little signals and codes that pass between them. The only one who hesitates is Jango Fett.

“You’re feeling safe and secure, Senator?” he asks politely.

Padmé lets a calming smile cross her face. “Of course,” she says. “You’re all close enough to come running if something gets past the Duchess’s guards.”

“Assuming you three don’t handle it yourselves,” he murmurs.

Well, he’s a bounty hunter, Padmé thinks; of course he’d notice that Cordé, Dormé, and I aren’t exactly helpless.

Without another word, Jango Fett bows slightly and takes his leave.

It’s just her, her handmaidens, and the attendant-in-waiting now; Padmé sighs loudly and sits down in one of the chairs. Dormé moves behind her and starts undoing her hair, keeping up a chattering commentary on all the outfits and stained glass windows they’ve seen so far.

With Dormé providing cover and obscuring noise, Cordé stands in front of Padmé and reports what she thinks is going on.

_As we were travelling through hyperspace, there were a number of odd occurrences,_ she says, using a sign language that Padmé and her handmaidens had develped for Queen Amidala; it’s that way for every monarch of Naboo, each one having a secret and unique form of communication. Padmé isn’t the Queen any more, but her handmaidens still know her sign. Cordé continues, _There were minor disturbances right before we took off; at one point, a chef reported a server almost tripping. The kitchen staff are in disagreement about the number of servers, as well; some say ten, some say eleven_.

Padmé frowns a tiny bit. Minor things, yes, but the kitchen servers are Naboo children of elites training to take their place in high society; none would come close to tripping, and there should not be a fluctuating number of them.

_We have a stowaway_ , Padmé signs. It’s the only clear combination of the facts.

Cordé nods slightly.

Dormé taps twice on Padmé’s shoulder; she has an idea. She goes over to inspect the platters of fruit, still chattering on about meaningless topics, but this puts her in Padmé’s line of sight.

_I think I know who it is_ , Dormé signs.

Padmé narrows her eyes. Dormé wants to try something. She herself isn’t sure what’s going on - but she trusts Dormé, and she trusts Dormé’s instincts. _Go ahead,_ she signs.

“Boba,” Dormé says pleasantly, loudly enough to be overheard. “You can come out now.”

There’s a thump in the wall and the sound of a child swearing.

“Ooh, secret passage, nice,” Cordé murmurs.

Padmé restrains a sigh. It’s _not_ very nice, but of course Cordé would think so.

A few moments later, there’s a soft knock on the door; Dormé opens it, and Boba Fett enters the room.

“How did you know it was me?” are the first words out of his mouth.

Cordé crosses her arms. “How about _we_ ask the questions first,” she says sweetly. “Or, I suppose, we could just go call your father–”

“Cordé, be nice,” Padmé orders. “Let’s let him explain himself before moving on to the threats, hmm?”

Boba narrows his eyes - he’s caught that this exchange, a threat and a request for information, isn’t entirely unplanned. He’s sharp, Padmé thinks.

“Why don’t we make a deal,” Boba says - _very_ sharp, Padmé thinks. “I’ll answer your questions if you answer mine.”

Cordé makes a small sign with her hands that means _no_ ; Dormé, still standing behind Boba, nods. It’s up to Padmé to make the deciding vote.

“Very well,” Padmé says. “So. Why are you spying on me?”

“Because you’re the one who was least likely to notice, but you’ll also have the most information,” Boba says without hesitating. “About what’s going on on Mandalore, and what’s going on with the Duchess and my dad.”

Padmé nods slowly. That makes sense, given what she knows of the Fetts and what she knows of the situation on Mandalore. Now, to answer his question - “Dormé?”

“You weren’t entirely perfect when you were stowing away on our ship,” Dormé says. “Small things, but we Naboo have higher standards than most. And I knew it was you specifically because my spouse is from Mos Eisley, and they’re cousins of the Rockstrider family.”

“Oh,” Boba says, and relaxes a tiny amount.

“The Rockstriders are one of the families that just got off Kamino,” Dormé explains to the other two. “I’ve heard baby stories about this one hiding in the ventilation more times than I can count; and this being Mandalore, and Jango Fett being here… it just seemed to click together.”

Boba nods and grimaces. “I screwed up. Fine. What are you going to do with me?”

“You want answers about the Mandalorian Reformation and about your father, don’t you?” Padmé asks slowly.

Boba nods, looking rather wary.

“I want answers, too,” Padmé says, and meets his eyes squarely. “About the Council of Neutral Systems, about what stakes there are for this war. About who I can trust.” She’s taking a risk here, but she’s heard about Beru and her little brother; she’s heard about who got the ex-tatooinians off of Kamino. It may be a little ironic that the person she can trust with the information that Anakin’s given her is one she just caught spying on her, but such is life.

“You want to work together,” Boba says, and crosses his arms.

Padmé nods. “You get a better support structure and a solid excuse to be wandering the palace; I get more information than I would have otherwise, and extra security in case someone tries to assassinate me here.”

“You think that’s likely, in the heart of the palace?” Cordé murmurs.

“I think that anything is possible, after I was followed all the way to Tatooine last time someone wanted me dead,” Padmé corrects. “I think that no matter this planet’s neutrality, something else is going on here, and sooner or later trouble is going to raise its ugly head. I think we shouldn’t be working at cross purposes when we could be working together. Do we have a deal?”

Boba meets her eyes, watching and unblinking; she’s known successful senators with less piercing gazes than this ten-year-old.

“Deal,” he says.

 

* * *

 

 

There’s only a hint of static in his ear - the Naboo build their comms well. Boba can hear the Senator clearly, both through the comm and from his hiding place in the palace’s ventilation; it had taken careful rewiring of no less than six different traps and detectors to get him up here without the palace’s guards knowing, but it was definitely worth it for the clear view he gets of the audience hall.

This is probably going to be boring, he thinks, watching Amidala and the Duchess work out whatever they’re trying to work out, waiting and waiting until he finds whatever answers his father is looking for.

But Boba hasn’t anticipated how complex politics can get.

He watches Amidala sit down for her fancy lunch with the Duchess. She takes a small bite of fruit and smiles. “I hope you enjoy the meal,” she says to the Duchess. “All foods from Naboo, of course - though they’ll be much scarcer now, with the war on; some of our agriculture relies on imported fertilizers.” Her eyes dart down to the side, and she sighs, regretful. “Our people will survive, no doubt, but it will be a harsh year.”

The Duchess’s eyes narrow a tad, though she doesn’t say anything directly about Naboo’s imports - “Mandalore’s own agriculture is a challenge, as well, with our environment so inhospitable; we’re forced to import a majority of our food,” she says. “It’s a difficult balance to maintain, making sure my people get all they need, and we must keep open as many trade routes with as many systems as possible.”

… At least, Boba isn’t sure whether it had been direct or not.

“No, that was direct,” Dormé says cheerfuly when he asks her that evening. “Or, at least, as direct as things get in politics; Senator Amidala and Duchess Kryze are friends personally - that is, Padmé and Satine are friendly, so they don’t use as much misdirection as they might to other politicians, which means the discussions are less tense than normal.”

“This is _less tense_ and _more direct_ than normal?” Boba demands.

“Welcome to politics, kid,” Dormé says.

Boba shakes his head. “Give me a straightforward battle any day,” he mutters.

Dormé raises an eyebrow. “You’re deep in the mandalorian warrior culture, yes? It’s just a different kind of battlefield, with fancy clothes and face-paint for armor, and words as the blasters and vibroblades.” She shrugs. “Besides, on a battlefield, people fight, and people die; think of this as people fighting so nobody else _has_ to die.”

That had given him pause, because on one hand that’s why people _do_ fight, so that their friends and family don’t have to die or at least don’t die alone. But on the other hand… on the other hand, people from Tatooine aren’t warriors, and they need someone to fight for them, still. Maybe even moreso now that Beru and her friends have kicked the Hutts out.

So, he thinks, this is a way of fighting, and he stays up late that night reading up on the Naboo and politics and the recent history of disputed trade routes in the Republic.

Padmé is up too, so he’s not alone in his insomnia; it means he can watch her, frowning over the datapad on her desk, Cordé and Dormé snoring gently in their own beds, and he can wonder what she looked like with Naboo’s face-paint covering her like armor. The red, he knows from reading on the holonet, is for life, for vitality, for idealism; on Mandalore, that same red would mean honoring parents, paying homage to the past; on Tatooine, red is for survival, endurance, courage. Boba wonders what it means that when he sets aside all his expectations, red paint on lips and cheeks makes him think of blood.

Because Padmé is up, he can ask questions when he’s struggling to understand things like the motivations of the Trade Federation in the little war ten years ago.

She glances over the screen he’s been reading and raises an eyebrow. “You thought politics were simple and boring, didn’t you,” she says, and grins at his scowl. “Naboo has plasma veins running through its crust; the gungans use the plasma to make their weapons and habitats, but us humans hadn’t until a few decades ago. We had a treaty to sell what was mined to the Trade Federation, but it… wasn’t exactly the best deal for us. The contract was set to expire, and we would have negotiated a new one that was more profitable for us, which the Trade Federation didn’t want.”

Boba makes a face. “So all that - the invasion, the Sith helping them, everything - was just about _money_?”

Padmé’s face is serious when she answers. “Yes, it was _just_ about money,” she says. “ _Just money_ is what keeps people fed; _just money_ is what keeps people enslaved. Money put in the right places can fund new ways of hyperspace travel, or help injured populations recover, or give individuals power to make lasting changes. Money put in the wrong places will kill untold thousands as they can’t import food in a famine or can’t make repairs to shelters. That’s why we have a government - to try and make sure that money goes to helping as many people as possible.”

Boba falls silent, staring at her. Sure, he knew people would do a lot for money, but he hadn’t really gotten _why_ before. But put like that… he’d grown up on Kamino, knowing something was wrong, knowing he had to keep secrets, but he’d never gone hungry because they were too poor for food.

“Naboo wasn’t always rich and prosperous,” Padmé says quietly, when Boba hasn’t spoken in a few minutes. “Decades and decades ago, a few centuries, we were… well, nowhere near as poor as Tatooine. We were still a nice, pretty mid-rim planet. But we value beauty _because_ we know how hard it is to achieve; when the autumn winds destroyed your farm and you were forced to move in with your neighbors, taking their needed food and crowding their home, all you could bring with you is your hands, your skills, and try to make things a little bit lighter. And then that beauty became a competition - but the friendly kind, because at the spring festivals when everyone was a little hungrier than they’d like, you could see all the beautiful things people have made, cooped up in their homes over the winter. Beauty became about giving, and sharing, and hope.” She glances up at the clock and sighs. “And if I’m sitting here rambling on about Naboo’s history, we’re both far too sleep deprived to get any real work done.”

Real work - he’s doing research, but she is too, looking through logbooks and records to try and find some trace of connection, some hint of a clue to how Gardulla was connected to the Sith.

_Money_ again, he thinks.

“I’m not the one who’s going to be fighting with my words tomorrow morning,” he points out. “ _You_ should probably go to sleep.”

“I probably should,” she agrees, and turns back to her datapad, making no move to get up.

Boba snorts, and does the same. Politicians and their wordplay, he thinks, and starts reading up on the workings of the Galactic Senate.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Mando'a**  
>  Buir: Parent (father, mother, or guardian; Mando'a has no marked gender in nouns)  
> Mando'ade: Children of Mandalore, mandalorians
> 
> A note about Mandalorian politics:  
> They're a mess. They're really, really a mess, and I'm taking the parts I like from canon (hah, "canon," who even knows what's canon and what's not at this point) and ignoring the parts I don't like. That will become clearer in further chapters, but it's just a thing to keep in mind for now.  
> As far as I can tell, Mandalore has a constitutional monarchy (Duchess + Prime Minister (probably + council/parliament/??? but that's never really clarified?)); I have my own idea for where this fits in with the whole Mand'alor thing, and will definitely be exploring that because it's FASCINATING. And weird. And also clear that the showrunners don't really get how governments work. (though to be fair neither do I.)


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The 144th begins their hunt for Grievous.

 

Grievous has a lair on a small, abandoned moon in a small, abandoned system that doesn’t even have a name outside of its numerical designation.

Luna stands beside Shmi, crossing her arms and staring down at the hologram displaying the moon’s terrian.

“Slick is going to kill you, you know,” the captain says.

Shmi frowns, and spins the display around.

“Who knows,” Luna continues. “Maybe he and Rano will stop being at each others’ throats long enough to work together and get you out of whatever disaster you’ll stumble into this time, and then kill you together out of sheer frustration.”

“Our intel on this hideout was old enough that we can’t be sure how up-to-date it is, which meant that we needed to leave as soon as possible,” Shmi says calmly. “And that means that we couldn’t have waited for Slick or Rano or both of them to come join us.”

“And you didn’t want to risk either of them getting killed by Grievous,” ’33 points out.

Shmi can feel her mouth tighten. “I don’t want any of you to get killed by Grievous,” she counters. “Not you, not Slick, not Rano, not _anyone_. The best way to do that is for me to go in alone.”

Luna’s muttered “No it’s _not_ ,” is drowned out by ’33’s cheerful, “At least I’ll have a name to put on my grave now.”

Shmi pauses at that, wrenching her gaze up and away from the holographic moon to look at the trooper. “You picked one?”

“Alema suggested it,” he admits. “I - I’m _Siolo_ now, I guess.”

“Siolo.” She can feel a hint of a smile grow on her face. “You do have a way with words.”

Luna slaps her brother on the back. “This calls for a party,” she says. “Or, well, it would if we weren’t in the middle of planning a suicidal attack on a maybe-deserted secret hideout on a moon so tiny it doesn’t even have a designation.”

“Let’s call it _death-trap_ ,” Siolo suggests.

“Because it’s a death trap?” Ray, the medic, asks, crossing his arms.

“Because it’s a death trap,” Siolo agrees.

Ray shrugs, then turns to Shmi. “You need to bring _some_ of us with you,” he says. “And if you’re bringing some of us, you may as well bring most of us.”

“Grievous will slice through your armor like it’s so much flimsiplast,” Shmi snaps.

“You’re not even _wearing_ armor,” Ray says.

Luna nods. “We have blasters, remember?” she says, tapping the one clipped to her back. “We can engage from a distance.”

“How about this,” Siolo suggests, and presses some buttons on the display, zooming in to the area they think Grievous’s base will be. “You want us to be safe, and we want you to be safe; so you go ahead and scout around, but you bring one of _our_ scouts with you, too. If you find Grievous, you retreat… this way,” he says, drawing his finger from the base’s area to a small stone outcropping. “We’ll have a group stationed there, and we can get Grievous as he goes by.”

“And if he notices you and attacks before you can shoot, or has some new defense against blasters?” Shmi asks, a lot more calmly than before; if there’s a way to keep everyone safe, and still get Grievous, that’ll be… better than any of the alternatives.

“Then you stab him in the back with your ‘saber,” Luna says when Siolo pauses. “We won’t be able to fire at him unless you’re out of the way, but this way your main job will be to distract him, then get out of the way.”

“Hm,” Shmi murmurs. “That… could work.”

“And if it doesn’t and we all die, at least you won’t have to deal with Slick and Rano,” Luna points out cheerfully.

“At least there’s that,” Shmi says dryly. “All right. Let’s get to work.”

They hammer out a few more details, then wait for the sun to rise - working in the dark might be better for sneaking inside an enemy base, but they’re going to need to _see_ their target, and lightsabers have a tendency to ruin night-vision. The last arguing point is whether Shmi will take a scout along or not, but she doesn’t push very hard; after all, she’ll just be running the minute she finds Grievous, so they won’t be at too much of a risk. Hopefully.

The scout chosen to go with her is Aliike, who also happens to be the squad’s artist; he’s quiet, hesitant from his time under Krell, but he’s been getting more and more comfortable speaking up around Shmi. He also has some of the sharpest eyes in the legion; it’s him who points out the base’s entrance, covered in brown-red dust and looking almost like the surrounding rocks.

It’s dark inside, and neither of them say much; there’s not much to say, other than “this way” or “look over there.”

Shmi runs her hands along one of the walls, feels the cold rock of the moon.

“What do you make of the design of this base, Aliike?” she asks quietly.

Aliike takes a long moment to respond. “This isn’t somewhere anyone wants to be,” he says quietly. “Not a place to relax, or a place to plan.”

“Not a place to heal,” she murmurs. “A place to retreat, yes, but not by choice.”

“No,” a voice agrees from the shadows, and Shmi spins around, igniting her lightsaber.

Grievous stands in an alcove, hidden by shadow until her ‘saber illuminates the hall in green. He looks worn, except for his right arm, which is shiny-white, bright and new; Anakin had cut off that arm on Hypori, but it must have been replaced. The rest of him, though, is just as battle-scarred as before; his mask, cracked and burned on one side, has been polished but not replaced.

She watches him, waiting for movement; he watches her, two of his lightsabers drawn and ignited but not attacking.

“Who are you?” she asks, and he snarls and lunges forward.

Too slowly; she parries easily, and steps back, gesturing at Aliike to retreat as planned.

Attack, block, attack, block, she retreats after him step by step, backing down the corridor more slowly than the planned running away. Shmi could make an attack of her own, forcing him to block, giving her room to turn and run; she could push him away, giving her that same space to retreat. She doesn’t.

This is too easy.

“General!” Aliike calls from the end of the hallway. “Come on!”

“A moment,” she calls back, and finally lunges forwards, locking Grievous’s blades with hers and bringing them close, face-to-face.

He could detatch his secondary arms and draw two more lightsabers; he _should_ detatch his secondary arms and draw two more lightsabers.

He doesn’t.

“What do you want?” she asks calmly, as if they didn’t have three burning blades pressed close between them. “Not my death, clearly.”

Grievous growls. “I _wish_ I could kill you, Jedi,” he snarls, and kicks.

She’s forgotten his legs. She’s an _idiot_.

But his kick is made with the claw closed; instead of ripping open a hole in her stomach, she’s just tossed backwards, the wind knocked out of her.

Aliike kneels down beside her. “General, are you okay?” he demands.

Shmi nods, still out of breath, and looks up.

Grievous still watches them, from the other end of the hallway; she can see him glance at Aliike.

“Follow me, and I will kill every single one of your precious clones,” he warns her, then turns and stalks away, his claws scraping at the rock.

Aliike helps her up, and they both watch him disappear into the shadows of the base; a few minutes later, their comms buzz.

“General, we just saw a ship take off from the base,” Luna’s voice says. “Did you find Grievous? Are you all right? Should we track it?”

“We found Grievous,” Aliike says into his comm. “The General’s fine, but a little winded.” Then he pauses, and looks at Shmi.

She has a duty, she thinks. A duty to the Jedi - a duty to the clones. Which will she put over the other?

That’s barely even a question.

“Don’t track it,” she says.

“Copy that, sir,” Luna says.

Aliike clears his throat. “Grievous threatened to kill ‘every single one of her precious clones’ if she followed him,” he says.

There’s a pause. “Tracking the ship,” Luna says brightly.

“ _Captain Luna_ –”

“General Skywalker,” growls a slightly deeper, infinitely more annoyed voice. “This is Major Slick, with Commander Lock and the rest of the crew of the _Reckless_. Track that damn ship.”

Shmi sighs, but she can’t deny the fact that some anxiety deep inside her has quieted down, now that Slick is almost back by her side. “You named the ship?”

“It needed a name, and then we heard about your orders,” Slick says. “You can name the next ship if you stop being so…”

“Adjectival?” Siolo suggests from the background, probably through Luna’s comm.

Shmi sighs, again, and tries to ignore Aliike’s quiet snickers. “We’ll head back to the ship. Captain Luna, take your squad and head there too.”

“Yes, sir,” Luna says.

The walk out is much like the walk in, dark and foreboding, but without the worry of Grievous hanging over them. No, now Shmi just has more questions. If Grievous wants her dead - why is she still alive?

 

* * *

 

 

Rano is waiting for her at the ship’s entry ramp, standing straight and professional.

“Go rest, get refreshed,” Shmi orders Luna’s squad.

Luna sticks by Shmi, trailing a little bit behind her as Rano stays directly at her side. They barely get ten steps into the ship before Rano glances over at her and says, “You are an _idiot_ , sir.”

“So I’ve been told, several times,” Shmi says. “Forgive me, Rano, if I don’t want any of you to die on my orders–”

“Plenty of us have died on my orders,” Rano says, and suddenly Shmi can hear the fury in his tone. “This is a _war_ , general. Better us than civillians.”

Shmi closes her eyes.

“He’s right,” Luna says from behind them. “Better us than civillians; at least we have a fighting chance.”

“Look at it this way,” Rano says. “If you die, we get a new general, someone we don’t know - and then who will help us?”

Shmi halts in the middle of the corridor.

“That’s a cheap shot, Rano,” she says quietly.

He meets her eyes. “Yes, sir.”

“You’re asking me to order people to die,” she says, still barely raising her voice above a whisper.

“We’re asking you to order people to fight,” he replies.

They reach the command deck, and the doors slide open to reveal Slick, his arms crossed and a glare on his face. The emotions that she can feel from him, though, are closer to… worry. Fear - for his legion, for her.

She takes a deep breath. “I’m sorry,” she says, and looks around the room - at Slick, at Rano, at Luna. At the other captains, at the troopers standing around. “I _will_ try to stop doing things alone.”

“Really?” Slick demands, looking her directly in the eyes. “You need to promise us, General, that you’ll let us help.”

“I promise,” she says, and means it.

Slick lets out a sigh of relief. “Finally,” he says. “All right. Now that we got that over and done with - what’s the situation?”

“Grievous is–” Shmi hesitates. Not only because she doesn’t know how to put it into words; she’s not sure she wants the whole legion to know how strange things are, and what those implications could be.

She’s blessed with Slick, though, who has no trouble reading her cues, and no trouble being blunt. “All right,” he announces. “Clear the room, this is just for me, the general, and the commander.”

Commander Lock is quiet as always, standing on the other side of a powered-down holotable; his eyes watch the room, though, as it clears of everyone save him, Shmi, Slick, and Rano.

Slick stares pointedly at Rano; Rano pointedly ignores Slick.

Shmi gives Slick a look that says _it’s fine_.

Slick shoots a look back that says _no it’s not_.

Rano gives both of them an exasperated look saying _is this really important right now?_

“Grievous wasn’t trying to kill me,” she announces.

“What?” Slick frowns. “That doesn’t make any sense.”

“No, it doesn’t,” she agrees. “But he was going easy on me; he wasn’t using his full speed, he wasn’t really trying to get through my defenses. He didn’t even pull out those extra arms of his, not even when he could have used them to win the fight.”

“… Did you deliberately test that, General?” Rano asks carefully.

“I guess we really do have a name for the ship,” Lock murmurs.

Lock speaking up is such a surprise that it distracts Rano and Slick from Shmi’s… well, she can admit it was rather reckless behavior.

That doesn’t change the fact that she’d do it again if she had to. Grievous hadn’t killed her - had _chosen_ not to kill her, despite clearly wanting to do so. Clearly not a restriction from all Jedi, given the lives lost on Hypori and the lives lost since that battle; also clearly not a change of heart, from his threat to her legion.

Shmi glances up at Rano, Lock, and Slick, who are are all watching her think.

“Let’s cut this short,” Slick says abruptly, glancing between Rano and Lock. “The general’s tired from a long day, and she has that holocall waiting for her.”

“Holocall?” she asks, sitting up straight. “From who?”

Slick grins, which tells her all she needs to know. “The _other_ General Skywalker. He recorded a message, since you were out being stupid; we chatted a bit with Sarad. Did you know he picked up a padawan?”

Shmi doesn’t bother hiding her shock. “Ani? A _padawan?_ ”

Slick nods.

“Oh, dear,” she says, feeling a smile cross her face. “This promises to be quite an interesting story.”

It is an interesting story, especially from Ani’s telling, Beru and Rex interjecting when they deem it relevant or funny; near the end of the recording, Ani’s new padawan jumps in, and Shmi recognizes Ahsoka.

It’s not a pairing she saw coming, even knowing both Ahsoka and her son; but watching them together, seeing Ani roll his eyes and grin at Ahsoka, seeing Ahsoka scowl and stick her tongue out at Ani, Shmi can tell that they’ll be good for each other. It seems that unorthodox padawans are the theme of their lineage.

When the message finally ends, with a request from Ani to call her for a live talk when she has time, it’s just her and Slick alone in the room; Rano and Lock have wandered off to work on logistics.

They’re quiet, Shmi still smiling from the safety of her family, but Slick is brooding.

She sighs, and shuts down the holodisplay. “All right,” she says quietly. “What is it?”

“This is too many strange things going around you,” Slick says, not meeting her eyes, staring across the empty room. “Krell was pushed, and he was sent after you, specifically. Then Vulsion calls his ship, thinking that he’s still in command, she gets a clone, learns the situation, and she _laughs_.”

“All we have for that situation is Rano’s description of it,” Shmi points out. “He could have missed something; we had to go to Hypori straight after. Many things could have been unnoticed, forgotten, garbled.”

Slick scowls. “ _He’s_ another weird thing.”

She shrugs. “I don’t see why you think so.”

“He’s _spying on you_ ,” Slick says, throwing his arms up in the air. “You don’t have a _problem_ with that?”

“My padawan-brother has always had a tendency to prefer more information to less,” she replies calmly. “He’s always been too careful, always wanted to be more in control of a situation; I see nothing strange about him wanting to keep a closer eye on me in the middle of a war. I do have a problem with him not telling me, and with him not asking; however, that’s a problem I have with _Dooku_ , not with Rano.”

“Fine,” Slick says. “Whatever. Lose valuable war information to a known plant, it’s _your_ war. But the rest of my point stands - there are too many weird things happening.”

“That’s something we can agree on,” Shmi says quietly. Truth be told, Dooku’s subterfuge has bothered her a little - it means that he feels she cannot be trusted on her own, and she is going to have words with him about that. But regardless, it’s not Rano’s fault, no matter what he may hear and pass on; she reaches out her senses for a moment, and yes, he’s listening to the conversation they’re having now. Who knows? Maybe Dooku will hear what she has to say on the topic and apologize of his own volition.

… Maybe not. She does know her padawan-brother, after all, and he hates admitting it when he’s wrong.

“And now there’s this thing with Grievous,” Slick says softly, leaning back against the holotable. “Krell, a Jedi Master, fell and tried to kill you; Grievous, a seppie general, left you alive, and is trying to keep you away from him.”

“This war has too many secrets,” Shmi says.

“All right,” Slick says, meeting her eyes. “Then let’s find them out.”

Shmi raises an eyebrow. “That’s easier said than done.”

Slick’s voice drops down to barely above a whisper; Shmi can tell that Rano is still listening in, but she doubts that he can hear this.

“I don’t like being manipulated,” he says quietly. “And it feels like someone - the Senate, the Jedi, the Sith, whoever - is pulling all the strings, and we’re all too caught up in the osik going on that we can barely notice that something _is_ wrong, let alone what.”

Shmi lets out a deep breath. “Yes,” she says. “That’s it exactly.”

Yoda had once told her that the Jedi’s vision was clouded, shadowed; that of all of them, she alone saw clearly. It doesn’t feel like that any more. Now she’s one of the Jedi, confused and stumbling towards the future. The lightsaber on her belt, the Force at her fingertips - they don’t help her see the path forward. _Clouded by fear, the Jedi are_ \- Jedi must master their fear, but instead are clouded by it.

Shmi is a Jedi. She is clouded, shadowed.

But she is _herself_ , too. The enslavement of the clones, the deaths of those she tries to protect - these things weigh on her, but she has to continue on. That’s part of what she’s forgotten, what she’s relearning here.

Drop by drop. Step by step. The path forward.

_Patience_ , she thinks, and something in the Force sounds like an echo.

“Captain Luna was starting to teach me Mando’a,” she says.

Slick smiles, his eyebrows going up in surprise - but a pleasant one. “Good on her,” he says, sounding impressed. “How far did you get? Have you gone over how tenses work yet? It’s a little different from Basic, but still…”

 

* * *

 

 

The ship’s - the _Reckless_ ’s - training salles are deserted, this late at night; not true night, but shipboard-night, synced with the Senate-time on Coruscant as is standard.

Shmi has gotten much more careful about her late-night katas since her padawan years. She’s done it less often, as she’s become more and more comfortable with her lightsaber, more and more comfortable with her status, but still she now knows how to do it in true solitude - a moment to listen with the Force, and she knows that even Rano has not followed her here, that even Slick has decided she probably won’t get into trouble in the middle of the night.

This isn’t trouble, and it isn’t a fear of failing in front of others; Shmi knows exactly what this is, and it is her discomfort with the idea of the vaapad.

Windu’s form touches the dark, that burning fury and desire to destroy. It controls it and restrains it, focuses it into overwhelming force, but it touches it all the same.

The holocron that Mace has sent her is one of the basic types, not containing an imprint of a Jedi but simply displaying katas, holding texts, correcting stances. The first kata is familiar, the one that Mace had shown her, and it flows clearly into the second kata, stored on the holocron. Shmi goes through the first kata, once, twice, thrice, to make sure she has it solidly down; yet her eyes keep darting to the second kata displayed on the holocron.

The form _wants_ to keep going, she thinks, and makes herself stop. It has a kind of momentum, something that makes her body come alive, tempts her into wanting to go through just one more strike, one more attack.

Something to watch out for; this form is dangerous, and for good reason.

It is time for her to try the second kata, though, and she watches the hologram of Mace go through it, fast and devastating.

Shmi steps through the kata and it feels like a sandstorm, like one of the hurricanes of Mon Calamari; the crushing pressure of a mountain, boiling within from the magma just waiting to erupt.

She knows sandstorms like she knows her own bones, the biting winds, the scorching sun, how breaths become coughs as sand flies into your mouth when you breathe, into your eyes, into all your pores. A sandstorm will eat everything in its path, except _eating_ implies a kind of deliberation; the sandstorm doesn’t care for what it destroys or what it buries. It just _is_ , as the sky, as the suns.

Shmi is not a sandstorm.

She halts, partway through a strike, her muscles tense, her lightsaber bright. It is too easy a mistake to fall into, but she is _not_ a sandstorm - she is a person, and her name is Shmi, and she _has_ intent. She can excercise that intent as she wishes, be it to kill or to let live, to mend or to destroy. If she rages, it will be because she feels rage, and not because of weather conditions. If she consumes everything in her path, the vaapad thrumming through her bones - that will be because some part of her wants to, and no part of her has that desire. To break, yes, to burn, yes, but only that which needs breaking or burning.

Even a Jedi cannot halt a sandstorm; children of slaves on Tatooine know to hide, to take shelter. Visualizations, metaphors, whatever uses there are in comparing herself to a storm, she will take those, but Shmi is not a sandstorm, and she is in control of herself, of her choices, of her actions.

She walks through the first and second katas of the vaapad, and her bones are solid and steady beneath her skin.

The hour grows late, and she closes the holocron, returns to her quarters, lets herself drift to sleep. In the time before she wakes, Shmi does not dream, save a single impression - a human hand covered by a shadow, reaching out, giving something, asking something.

The morning doesn’t dawn, but it brightens, the corridor lights slowly coming to full power, the minds on the ship waking up.

Breakfast is rushed, because they’ve finished tracking Grievous’s ship.

“The Ileenium system,” Shmi says, and tilts her head. “I’m not sure I’ve heard of that one.”

Rano shrugs, scrolling through the database. “Looks like there’s only one life-supporting planet, and there are no sentients, native or otherwise. Well, save Grievous and whatever he’s brought. Native wildlife could be tricky to deal with, but only in the long term; short term, there shouldn’t be any issues.”

“The jump from here will take roughly six hours,” Commander Lock reports. “Should we make the jump now, sir?”

Shmi gives him a small smile. “Yes,” she says, and glances around, meeting Slick’s eyes, then Rano’s, then Lock’s. “We need to catch up with him as quickly as possible.”

Outside, the black behind the stars blurs the the blue of hyperspace.

“Sir?” says a voice behind her, and Shmi turns.

Captain Luna is standing there, Siolo at her side, Aliike and Ray trailing behind them.

Siolo glances at Luna.

Luna elbows him.

“Fine, fine,” he mutters, then clears his throat. “I was asking Aliike about your fight with Grievous, but he couldn’t remember all the details, and Ray and I were curious about how Grievous fights, and the captain said we should just come ask you about formulating a strategy.”

“Of course,” Shmi says, keeping a small smile on her face even though this is one of the best things that’s happened in a long time - clones coming to her with their own ideas, when just last month they barely let themselves breathe in a Jedi’s presence. “Let’s go over to the holotable, we can pull up some footage.”

They all go over to the holotable, Slick, Rano, and Lock coming along with Luna’s group; Shmi can see Slick and Rano each separately giving Luna a furtive thumbs up, and has to keep herself from laughing.

Shmi pulls up an image of Grievous standing still, then switches to a short clip of an attack, all four of his lightsabers drawn. The clip loops over and over as she talks over it, tracing over the lines of attack.

“His style is definitely efficient,” she explains. “He could use his extra sabers for blocking, but he rarely needs to. The form he uses is modified, obviously, to accommodate for his four lightsabers and his cybernetic enhancements, but it is based off of a Jedi form, one called makashi - the same one that I use.”

None of the clones, as far as she’s aware, have more than basic training with longer melee weapons, but they all still follow her discussion of the various lightsaber forms with avid interest; as she goes over the basics of all the different forms, a few more even walk over to listen in and learn. Mandalorians, she thinks fondly, as Aliike asks a question about the efficacy of niman against multiple enemies.

“Hey, let’s stay on topic. Back to Grievous,” Slick says finally, as if he hadn’t spent at least five minutes asking about the djem so variants.

“Back to Grievous,” Shmi agrees. “The traditional counter to makashi is based on the fact that it’s meant for the precise takedown of an enemy. Against a foe that can simply exercise overwhelming force, there’s not much precision can do; I’d say we could use that to defeat Grievous, but the problem there…”

“He already has overwhelming force,” Lock says, frowning at the hologram. “How do you overcome that?”

With the vaapad, Shmi doesn’t say.

“Hopefully, with knowledge,” she does say. “I know makashi very well, which grants me an advantage over someone with less knowledge of the form. Overwhelming force counters makashi, but makashi is also its own counter; it is, at its base, a duelling form.”

Rano is frowning. “That still doesn’t sound like the best odds, sir,” he says.

Shmi shrugs. “It’s better odds than anyone else has,” she says. “We saw that on Hypori.”

She knows he’ll take her meaning, that Grievous, for whatever reason, is unwilling to fight her; that thought, though, only seems to make him frown more.

“We also know that he’s weak to blaster fire, though,” Slick says, swiping through the images until he finds one with Grievous’s sabers spinning like shields. “He can keep it off of him when he does this, mostly, but he also can’t precision-deflect like the Jedi can.”

“That’s something else we can use,” Luna says, studying the image. “Look, here and… here,” she says, pointing between the circles the blades make, “He can’t block from those angles without turning, and he can’t overlap those blades more without cutting off bits of himself…”

Shmi draws back as Luna and Slick begin hashing out various tactics; this is far from her area of expertise.

Siolo draws back too, coming over to her side.

“General,” he asks. “Do we know how Grievous learned a Jedi form?”

He’d asked the question quietly, but it still grabs everyone’s attention. (Except Slick and Aliike, who have begun quietly arguing about form and function.)

“… Huh,” Ray says. “And… do we know who gave him those cybernetics, too? Where did he _come_ from?”

“If they knew, that’d be in the briefing, wouldn’t it?” Rano points out, but his tone is uneasy - he’s uncomfortable with the question.

“We don’t know,” Shmi says, and doesn’t let herself grimace, doesn’t let herself grit her teeth in frustration. “He appeared out of almost nowhere. Our best guess is the Sith taught him, augmented him, but we don’t know for sure.”

Her greatest strengths lie in her understanding of people, but if she doesn’t know who Grievous is, how can she use that?

As she always has, she can do nothing but try.

_Do or do not_ , Yoda’s voice echoes in her memory; but this is a situation when even her old teacher would agree that certainty and willpower won’t necessarily help her find the answers she’s looking for.

 

* * *

 

 

It’s shipboard-dusk when they get to the Ileenium system, when the lights would start to dim if they weren’t in pursuit.

“We should sleep in shifts,” Shmi muses as they circle the planet. “So that not everybody is sleep-deprived when something like this happens.”

Slick shrugs. “I’d be too wired to sleep, if it were me,” he says. “But for standard campaigns - something to consider for the future, I guess.”

The planet is lush and green - D’Quar, the database had said, named by Duros explorers a few centuries ago when they’d briefly settled it, then departed. No real strategic value, except as a hideaway, a place to run to.

Or maybe as somewhere to hide secrets.

“Prepare a landing party,” Shmi says. “Small; we don’t expect to find droids here.”

“But with backup ready and waiting,” Slick adds. “We don’t expect any droids, but there’s always a risk.”

Shmi nods. “You and Commander Lock organize that,” she says. “The squad coming with me…”

“I will, sir,” Rano says.

“Good,” she says. Better to have someone with black ops training to infiltrate a secret base. Slick seems to understand that, too, because he limits his annoyance to a few glares.

The _Reckless_ is orbiting on the side of the planet in night-time, opposite where Grievous had landed; the transition, through the open slats of the transport as they skim the surface, is steady but jarring as they fly towards daylight.

“Don’t engage Grievous directly,” she warns the squad as they approach the hidden base. “I can hold him off, but he’ll slice through you with barely any effort. If you have to face him, get to a distance, rely on ranged blasters.”

“Yes, sir,” the squad says, not quite in unison.

“Make sure the General’s not getting overwhelmed, though,” Rano warns them all. “If she looks like she needs help, don’t hesitate about distracting him.”

Shmi glares at Rano through the shadowed lighting of the transport. “But don’t take unnecessary risks,” she says. “I can handle myself.”

“Of course you can, sir,” one of the troopers says - Silver, with a swirling, detailed glyph on one of his pauldrons.

Rano, Silver, Nibs, Cat-Eyes, Fireday, Gaid, Arasu, Kore, and Buckle - Shmi looks at all of them and hears Grievous’s warning echoing in her ears.

The pilot sets them down a distance from where they think Grievous’s base is, just in case it has any aerial defenses; this means they have a short, tense trek through the jungle to the base.

“It’s too quiet,” Fireday mutters after a few minutes. “And I don’t think _we’re_ the ones who scared off all the animals.”

Kore taps her fingers against the barrel of her rifle, a nervous tick that belies her anxiety when it’s not clear in her voice. “Could be Grievous. Could be droids.”

“Neither of those options are good,” Rano points out. “Tight formation, get in close. Gaid, Kore, watch our rear; Buckle, Fireday, you get our left. Arasu, Nibs, our right.”

“Everybody, hush,” Shmi orders. “Stop - hold as still as you can.”

They settle, tense and still; Kore, Fireday and Arasu have sniper training, but the others - except Rano - take a few moments to get truly quiet.

Shmi breathes, listening, reaching out, and out, and out, but there’s… nothing. The nine bright lives around her, yes, but beyond that, no sentients for a kilometer, two, five, ten–

She breaks off the search, a headache starting to build; she’s not strong enough in the Force to search the entire planet, but Grievous’s base isn’t even a kilometer away. If he’s here, she should sense him.

He’s not here.

But _something_ is.

No animal sounds, no other people; the faint rustle of the trees, dripping water in the distance. Whispers of leaves on leaves, the cracking of sticks in the underbrush - something large, making its way through the underbrush.

No, not some large thing - _many_ things.

“Droids,” Shmi says, narrowing her focus to their immediate surroundings. “Straight ahead. I don’t know how many of them, they’re not visible in the Force.”

Rano swears, flicking on his comm and passing on the report to Lock, back on the _Reckless_. The first blaster-shot through the trees takes him in the chest.

After that, it seems like the world is full of nothing but light and chaos. They can take shelter behind individual trees, but then so can the droids, each side darting between cover, firing at each other, scattered.

Shmi’s lightsaber is on, deflecting and slicing where she can - but her weakness is the same as Grievous’s, and moving forwards to engage the droids in melee would be too much of a risk. She pauses, for just a moment, then realizes it - none of the droids are shooting at _her_.

He won’t risk killing me even indirectly, she thinks bitterly, and deactivates her lightsaber; deflecting blasts aimed at other people is even trickier than personal deflection, and Shmi isn’t willing to risk hurting her own troops.

The one thing she can do is turn back, kneel down by Rano, and place her hand over his chest.

“General,” he says, his voice a pained whisper. “Don’t–”

“Don’t what?” she asks calmly - more calmly than she actually feels, but that’s slowly becoming the usual. “Don’t save your life?”

Rano stares up at her, blinking in pain and shock and confusion.

Shmi isn’t a healer, no matter how hard she’s tried to learn more than the basics; it’s just not her path. She can’t knit bones together, can’t mend torn veins or restore burnt flesh - she may not be able to heal, but she can _sustain_. As long as she sits here, Force flowing around her and through her, she can keep Rano’s heart beating, keep blood flowing through his veins, keep oxygen coming into his lungs.

The sounds of blasters going off doesn’t die down completely, but it does quiet; Kore rounds a tree, sees Shmi and Rano, and swears. “Is he–”

“He’ll be fine, but only if a medic gets here soon,” Shmi says. “What’s the situation?”

“We’ve mostly dealt with this group,” she says. “Cat-Eyes took a shot to the arm, but he’ll be all right; his aim is as good with his right as his left. The _Reckless_ should be here in just a few minutes.”

“Tell them to keep an eye out for more droids,” Shmi orders. “And… be wary of traps. It’s your deaths that Grievous threatened, if we pursued him.”

Kore’s face isn’t visible under her helmet, but her voice hardens. “Don’t worry, sir. We’ll make sure nothing goes wrong.”

That’s not something you can guarantee, Shmi wants to say, but Kore is already speaking into her comm, reporting Shmi’s warning.

The squadron stays close to Shmi and Rano, clearing up the droids and waiting for a medic. It’s tense, a mixture of fear and failure and victory on top of that; Grievous is gone, though they’ve defeated the droids. None are dead, but Rano lies on the ground, barely breathing, a Jedi’s fragile hand the only thing stabilizing him.

She can feel his pain through the Force, and that she can do nothing about - nothing but talk about whatever comes to mind.

“Qui-Gon Jinn was the first Jedi I ever met, you know,” she says, and Rano’s eyes flicker to hers, distracted for a moment. “He’d crashed on Tatooine - well, the ship he’d been on was hit, the hyperdrive damaged, and that’s as far as they’d been able to go. Their mission had been to guard Queen Amidala - she’s Naboo’s Senator now, but back then she was a Queen. And of course the only place in Mos Espa that had the hyperdrive parts he needed was the junk shop of the toydarian who’d owned me and Ani.”

She continues, on and on - a few minutes seems like a few years, when someone’s in pain, but Shmi knows how to distract from that.

The roar of a transport overhead comes just as she says, “He was so _smug_ , him and his certainty that I would become… well, this.”

Then it’s a rush of medics, getting Rano onto a stretcher, getting him on life support; but when the transport lifts off again, to take him to the _Reckless_ , Shmi knows that he’ll be all right, up and watching out for her and annoying Slick within the week.

“Sir,” Slick says, and she turns - he’s leading a small group of clones through the jungle. “Perimiter around the base is clear; there were a few more groups of droids, but they’ve all been dealt with. Scouts and scans are both showing some explosives wired to alarms around the base, but we’re working on disabling them. Hopefully Grievous will be inside.”

“He’s not,” she says - she’d felt no sentient presence when she listened, not within kilometers. “He’s probably long gone.”

“Stayed here long enough to set up the droids and the traps, then bolted?” Slick snorts. “Sounds like the cowardly Seppie he is. What should we do?”

Shmi looks into the jungle, towards the empty base where Grievous isn’t. Where there _are_ traps meant to kill, maybe bombs, maybe more droids, maybe–

“There might be information there, about the war or about other hideaways,” Slick says quietly.

“You’re right,” Shmi says, and brushes the dirt off of her skirt, brushes flyaway strands of hair out of her eyes. “Let’s keep searching.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Twi'leki/Ryl**  
>  Siolo: Poet
> 
> **Mando'a**  
>  Aliik: sigil, sign on armor  
> Osik: dung (impolite)
> 
>  
> 
> The next update may be a little late ("late," as if my semi-solid and mostly fake schedule exists anywhere outside my head) because I'm realizing I may want to split the next chapter into two chapters, which means if I'm gonna keep doing the alternating POVs thing I'm gonna have to figure out a new section for this group too and I've been avoiding that because reasons. I need to stop having anxiety about pacing, ugh.
> 
> Good news: I'll hopefully be less stressed out (and therefore more likely to write) because I decided to audit one of my classes instead of doing the crazy thing and taking too many. Bad news: my schedule is still horrifically busy, and I may not have a ton of time to write. We'll see.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Politics and politicians - even worse when you throw a warrior culture into the mix.

 

Four days into the negotiations, Padmé is sleep deprived and steadfastly not showing it; she knows she’ll have to take a break from analyzing Gardulla’s records, but she keeps telling herself, just one more night, and maybe I’ll find something.

Not that she’s found anything yet. Unexpected income? Of course. Sketchy expenditures? Almost too many to count. Unexplained use of resources? Definitely. She’s flagged some of the stranger ones, tracked down the beginnings of those trails, and so far none of them have even hinted at Sithly connections.

But that, she reminds herself sharply, is _not_ something to be worrying about right now; she nods at Prime Minister Almec, acknowledging the point of what he’s saying, then counters, “Yet we are all more successful when we work together. Mandalore is _part_ of the Republic, though of course it’s a sovereign system as well. This conflict will affect us all, neutral or not.”

Talking Boba through the politics involved has actually been very helpful in refreshing her own knowledge of the situation, in particular Mandalore’s place in the galaxy: part of the Republic, yes, but standing apart from it at the same time. They deal with other Republic planets and work under the Republic’s interplanetary laws, but no mandalorian may be tried anywhere except Mandalore or one of its territories, and Mandalore has its own laws regarding family lines and the consequences of killing.

Though the consequences of killing had gotten much harsher after the latest civil war.

Duchess Satine frowns a bit and sighs. “Such is the _nature_ of conflict,” she says. “You say it will affect us because we are part of the Republic? It will affect us because we are sentients living in this galaxy. We must preserve what peace we can; you and I agree on that, Senator Amidala. Yet you argue that our participation will help bring peace; I say that if Mandalore joins this war, whatever capacity that may be, it will bring nothing but _more_ suffering.”

Padmé inclines her head a bit. Of course she understands where Duchess Satine is coming from; there’s every possibility that if Padmé were still Queen of Naboo, she’d be making the same arguments the Duchess is. Though Padmé has always been more than eager to help as much as she can… well, the point being, Padmé understands Satine. That doesn’t mean she can’t keep trying to convince her.

“Duchess Satine,” Padmé begins. “You say _whatever capacity_ you help in will bring-”

“Duchess!”

They all turn to a messenger, out of breath, standing at the Audience Hall’s doors.

“What is it?” Satine demands.

The messenger swallows. “There’s - there’s been a bombing, in the shopping district-”

Cordé, standing just beside Padmé, tenses; ever since the bombing that had nearly taken Cordé’s life, just before the Clone Wars had begun, her handmaiden has been afraid of explosions.

Duchess Satine stands. “Send relief,” she orders, and a portion of her guards bow and go to do her bidding. “Make sure the firefighters are on their way, and as many medevac teams as we can spare - do we know if there are any casualties?”

“It’s still too early to tell,” one of the remaining guards says, listening to an earpiece. “Firefighters and medevac teams are already on their way, and it sounds like…” they trail off.

“There was a symbol,” the messenger says, almost too quietly to hear.

Padmé can see Satine taking a deep breath, grounding herself, steadying herself. She already knows what this is.

“What symbol?” Duchess Satine asks, though it’s not really a question.

“Death Watch, milady,” the messenger says.

There’s silence in the Audience Hall - silence from Duchess Satine, from Prime Minister Almec. From Jango Fett, standing so still he could be frozen. From Boba’s quiet breathing in the comm, as he watches, hidden, from above all their heads.

“Of course,” Satine says quietly, and walks down the dais to stand beside Padmé and Almec. She sounds calmer when she speaks, but Padmé can tell that it’s the calm of having to be a leader rather than any true peace. “There is a chance - small, but still a chance - that this is a–”

There’s a quiet thump.

_Beep_.

“Distraction,” Jango Fett says, lunges, and grabs the grenade, throwing it back where it came from. Towards a window, where there’s another armored mandalorian flying, one who bats the grenade back down to explode halfway between them.

Satine swears, and presses a button on a bracelet; the room darkens as blast shielding comes down, covering all the windows and the walls.

Padmé glances up - Boba’s vent is blocked off, too; hopefully he’ll be safe. _They_ certainly aren’t safe, as the would-be assassin is in the room with them, shut off from the outside world until Satine gives the all-clear.

A hand grabs Padmé’s arm and she’s surprised to realize it’s the Duchess’s, dragging her and Cordé up towards the throne, then behind it, giving them some cover as the remaining guards exchange fire with the mandalorian. Prime Minister Almec follows close behind, and Jango Fett joins them a moment later, carrying the messenger who’d brought them the news.

The messenger, who’d been standing close to the entrance. Closer to where the mandalorian had entered.

Right near where the grenade had gone off.

Padmé remembers standing on the Senate’s landing platform, holding Cordé’s bleeding body in her arms. Cordé had looked half-dead, broken and bleeding, but with time and care they’d been able to heal.

The messenger looks far, far worse than Cordé had.

“K’oyacyi,” Satine says, kneeling down by the messenger. “Gedeti, k’oyacyi!”

“He’s gone,” Fett says quietly. “Nu kyr’adyc, shi taab’echaaj’la.”

Satine’s hands are shaking, nearly as bad as Cordé is, pressed up close to Padmé’s side; Padmé hadn’t known that Cordé would react so badly to an explosion going off, but then it’s likely that Cordé hadn’t either.

Fett lays the messenger down, gently, on the floor.

The shooting, a constant background noise, abruptly stops. Fett swears and rolls to the side, three shots impacting the ground where he’d been sitting.

“Traitor,” the assassin snarls.

Fett doesn’t reply.

“We fight for _Mandalore_ ,” they continue, their blaster trained squarely on Fett. “You want a better Mandalore, just like we all do; join us, and let the galaxy once again know the might of–”

A blue halo envelops the assassin - a stun shot from behind.

Duchess Satine stands, holding a blaster set to stun extended in what Padmé can tell is an expert grip. There’s a compartment open in the back of the throne that holds a few additional blasters.

Satine’s hands still shake, maybe now more than ever, though her shot had been steady.

A guard rounds the throne, coming up the dais behind her; at least they’ll have some backup if the assassin wakes up early, Padmé thinks.

“I didn’t think you still…” Fett begins, then stiffens. Satine frowns, then her eyes widen and she turns, too late.

The guard - one of her _own guards_ \- grabs the Duchess, pressing a knife to her throat.

Of course, Padmé thinks blankly, the shooting stopped, so why is a guard still standing - unless they’re working with the assassin.

Fett looks at the guard, the would-be assassin. “Let her go,” he says. “This isn’t the right way, you _know_ that.”

“Rich words, from the man who helped bring about the Clone Wars,” the guard snarls. “One who won’t even help his people, who stands idly by while our rights are _stolen_ from us–”

It happens so fast that Padmé doesn’t have time to process it. One moment, the guard has a blade to Satine’s throat, ready to cut; the next, there’s a grunt of pain and the guard is on the floor, pinned by the Duchess’s knee in their back. The knife is in Satine’s shaking hands, hovering just above the back of the guard’s neck, not even an inch away from completing the downward swing she’d begun.

Satine is breathing heavily, her eyes wide.

Everything stays that way for a moment - less than a few seconds, but they feel frozen, stretching out as Padmé tries to figure out what had just happened.

“Duchess,” Fett says carefully. “Is there anything we can use to restrain them, before you lift the shielding?”

“Here,” Cordé mumbles, and presses some handcuffs into Padmé’s hands. Their breaths are slower, calmer, but they’re still shaking slightly, pressed up against Padmé’s side; Padmé passes the cuffs to Fett.

“Lady Handmaiden, I don’t even want to know why you’re carrying around class four restraining cuffs,” he says, tossing a pair to Satine, which she catches despite her still-unsteady hands.

“Just _Handmaiden_ ,” Cordé says, quietly but clearly. “Today’s more of a non-gendered day for me.” Handmaiden is still the name of the job, a title that Cordé bears proudly, but some days the ‘lady’ part just doesn’t fit them.

Fett nods in acknowledgement, then reaches down to cuff the would-be assassin.

There’s a quiet pinging coming from the console in the arm of the throne, clearly not the beep of a detonator and probably chosen to be so distinct; Satine looks at it wearily.

“That’s the all-clear,” she says, still kneeling by the traitor guard, her voice hollowed out and exhausted. “They’ve found at least one other would-be assassin, but have captured or otherwise dealt with them, and have cleared the rest of the palace. It’s safe to lift the shields.”

Padmé stands, and goes to help Satine stand, but the Duchess flinches away from her, drawing into herself; Padmé stops and turns to Cordé, like that had been her plan all along. She knows Satine well enough after this to know that she’s not scared of Padmé attacking her - she’s scared to hurt Padmé.

Cordé clings to her, as she helps them stand.

“I have a feeling negotiations might be a little more complicated from here on out,” her handmaiden says, their voice tense but trying for humor.

“A little, perhaps,” Padmé murmurs.

Fett watches the Duchess stand, watches her walk over to the throne and press her thumb into the console, raising the dark armor covering the Audience Hall. He watches her glance down at the faithful guard, fallen to three blaster shots - one from in front and two from the side, where they hadn’t been expecting an attack; watches her close her eyes.

“We have quite a bit to discuss, I believe, Jango Fett,” she says.

Fett bows, just a slight dip but still more respect than he’s shown to Satine before. “We do, Duchess,” he says, as light fills the room, spilling in through the broken windows, illuminating the shattered glass covering the floor.

 

* * *

 

 

Boba paces in the Senator’s quarters, drawing a glare from the attendant-on-watch.

He can hear Amidala through his comm, but they’re designed to pick up other voices, too; he can hear the reports she’s hearing, detailing the Death Watch they’d caught in the palace and beyond. Well, ‘caught’ - one had jumped, one had cracked a poison pill hidden in their teeth. Only the Duchess’s traitorous guard and the warrior who’d gone after her directly remained in captivity, unconscious.

The attack had been terrifying. Not because of the violence, no, not because of the deaths - because every single aspect of it had _implications_. Politically - and he’s sure that there are more than the ones he’s been able to think of, with the little bits he's learned from Padmé - there’s the simple fact that the Duchess’s reign is being actively disputed, the fact that these are some of her own people who are trying to kill her, the fact that they don’t appear to care how much collateral damage they cause. Maybe they _want_ to cause collateral damage; he’s heard of the Death Watch that existed in his father’s youth, the one that killed his ba’buir. This may be the same Death Watch, or a different one, and there’s no way of knowing until the assassin wakes up. Even then, that’s assuming they don’t manage to off themself, and that they’ll talk, neither of which are guarantees.

More than just politically, there are… implications about Duchess Satine. He can mostly piece together what happened in the Audience Hall from what he heard over the Senator’s comm, though he knows he missed some things. But what he did catch…

The Duchess was the one to take down the two assassins. She did it nonlethally, and even that panicked her so much that she, a trained politician, couldn’t hide it from her voice. She begged, in Mando’a, for a message-runner caught in the crossfire to stay alive.

Her first instinct, when faced with an attack on herself, was to seal herself in a room with the attackers.

And now Boba’s buir calls her “Duchess,” and is going to talk to her, and if Boba sneaks along there’s even odds they’ll think he’s another assassin.

Well, if he gets caught; today looks like it’s a day for risks.

“I’m gonna go spy on some things,” he tells the attendant-in-waiting.

“Don’t get caught,” they say tiredly. “Today has been enough trouble as it is.”

Boba shrugs and walks out the door, taking a left then a quick right to duck into one of the secret passages.

They’re not unmonitored, of course, especially not in the wake of an assassination attempt, but Boba has learned a few tricks from Beru about sneaking around; he’s got a device that scans for security cameras, and now that he’s hacked into the security system he can put the ones he’s passing on a few-second loop.

He finds the Senator in the Duchess’s private audience chamber - a backup for the Audience Hall when it’s a little destroyed, probably; there’s another vent in the ceiling that he can use to watch, which he would say is a bit of a risk, except that he had to disable ten different traps and alarms climbing up to it, and he’s already seen how solidly they can shut down assassination attempts from the outside.

“Boba,” the Senator says quietly in his ear, when he’s halfway through disabling the seventh alarm. “What do you think you’re doing? This place is on lockdown.”

“From the outside,” he says, twisting two wires together. “Nothing stopping me from sneaking around as normal. Should you even be talking to me?”

“I’m in the restrooms,” she says. “We’re almost finished hearing the reports. I’m guessing that you’re going to stay and eavesdrop on your father?”

The alarm goes dark with nary a beep, and it’ll be easy enough to reactivate on his way out. “Of course.”

He can hear her sigh. “Good luck,” she says, then he hears a door open and the sound of people in the background; she’s back in the audience chamber.

A few more minutes and he can see her - see them all. Amidala looks tired, but not as tired as Cordé, who’s sitting to the side in a chair, their usually-precise posture simply a slump. Amidala stands behind them, her hand on their shoulder.

Cordé is the only one sitting; the Duchess stands, her hands so still she’s probably trying to keep them from shaking; her posture is precise, her voice steady.

Boba’s met many of his brothers, many of the clones, all of them different, but there are a few who are more anxious, more full of fear. Some of them panic and hide in corners, panic and cling to their batchmates; some of them, in the aftermath of a panic attack, force themselves to be in control, to be still as rock, their fear and terror locked down so tightly they look like the calmest person in the room - except they’re not.

Duchess Satine is in control, breathing slowly, but so tense she looks like she might shatter.

His buir stands by a wall, quiet.

The others in the room - the Prime Minister, various guards, various officials - also stand, with various twitches and levels of calm.

“… Will be investigated into,” the captain of the guard is saying. “None of us thought…” they shake their head. “There may be others, but we will find them, your Grace.”

The Duchess inclines her head. “Carefully, Captain,” she orders. “We do not wish to lose any more faithful guards to this, and no more do we want to leave traitors in our ranks.”

The captain bows and takes his leave.

“It is late,” the Prime Minister says, looking around the room, “And we’ve had a… a very trying day. Perhaps we should all retire to our quarters and rest, those of us who can.”

“A good suggestion, Prime Minister,” the Duchess says, glancing around the room. “Dismissed, all of you; the palace is on lockdown, and we are safe for now. Rest well. Mourn those we have lost, and know that we may be attacked again - but also that we will not bend in the face of this terrorism.”

The various officials bow, and Amidala helps Cordé to stand; both dip into a quick bow as well.

As everyone slowly files out of the room, the Duchess says, “Fett - a word, please?”

Half the room pauses and turns to face her; she narrows her eyes at them, and waits until they look away and continue on their way out.

Amidala and Cordé are two of the last to leave; Amidala glances back, between the two mandalorians, then walks out the door.

The silence stretches out between the two of them, as Boba holds his breath, waiting to see what will happen.

“How old were you?” his buir asks finally.

The Duchess huffs out a laugh and sits. “The first attempt on me, personally? Eleven.”

Boba can see his buir wince. “That’s… too young.”

He wants to object - he’s only ten himself, after all. But that would give away his eavesdropping, and now is _not_ the time for that.

“Really? How young were you, the first time you killed?” she says. “Thirteen, when our people used to become adults? Younger?”

“I was eleven, too,” he says.

She nods. “Too young,” she says. “Old enough to fight, old enough to work for what you want - too young to kill. Too young to die.”

His buir is quiet for a long moment. “You didn’t get the battle-shakes from that, though,” he says.

The Duchess goes still as stone. “You presume much,” she says quietly.

“Do I?” Jango says, and takes off his helmet. The face that Boba’s will grow into stares at the Duchess of Mandalore, meeting her eyes. “Do I? You take away our culture, cast us out - then you hold a stun-gun in your hands and don’t miss your aim no matter that you shake. I think I, of all people, deserve some answers.”

“Do you,” she murmurs, and stands again, whirling around to pace just as Boba had. “You weren’t even in the system as we fled from bounty hunter after bounty hunter, asking - _begging_ \- for aid, for hope, for a _single warrior_ to defend the house that they’d sworn themselves too. City by city, town by town, and they came to answer my call, and one by one, they were killed. I survived. I survived - but do you know how many children died, because I had slept in their house for a night? How many families were destroyed, because they’d given us some food? How many–” She stops, skirts swirling around her, and closes her eyes, takes a deep breath. “What did you think, you warriors, who were gone for the battles on our home ground?” she says quietly. “Did you think we decided to outlaw violence for _fun_? Because we, petty reformists that we were, wanted to _annoy_ you? No. We put an end to the warrior ways - yes, we, not just me, me and _all my people_ –” She stops again, looks up, meets his buir’s eyes. “I may be the Duchess who has stepped off the path we walked on for a thousand years, but forgive me for wanting to stop the screams of children.”

The room is silent for a long, long time, after she says that. Boba wonders for a while about the politics of the situation - what had those been like? He’s heard from his buir about the history of Mandalore, all the wars (well, most of them, there have been a lot), all its more recent history. He’d talked about how Kryze had torn away their way of life, smothered the warrior culture and held them back, but now Boba is thinking that they may have been missing a few of the facts. It echoes something Padmé had told him - there are always more things that you don’t know, more aspects of a situation. Every politician has a reason for every action, no matter how small and no matter how large.

Jango Fett picks up his helmet, in the room below, and slides it on; the Duchess watches him, her face blank.

He bows. “Duchess,” he says, then leaves.

She remains still, frozen, for a long while - almost as long as Boba, who stares down into the room his buir has just left and ponders all sorts of different implications before taking a deep breath and backing slowly down the ventilation, re-enabling all the various traps and alarms as he goes.

It’s slow, steady work, giving him time to think - about the Duchess trying to represent all her people, about the Death Watch that attacks her for what she’s done for them. About the way his father had bowed, and called her by her title, when before she’d just been _Kryze_.

Boba knows the general shape of how Mandalore’s government works, but he thinks that maybe that’s something to ask Padmé about, and his mouth is open to ask when he walks into Amidala’s rooms and into chaos.

Dormé is stalking around in an angry swirl of skirts, snapping at other servants and guards; Cordé is in a chair in the corner, their entire attention focused on a datapad. Boba sidles over to them, trying to stay out of Dormé’s warpath.

“What’s going on?” Boba asks them quietly, careful to not peek at the datapad.

Cordé swipes something away, not looking up. “Dormé’s furious that she took a bathroom break right when my Lady needed her most, even though there’s nothing she could have done. I’m going through the news and trying to get an idea about what happened. And Padmé’s seething in her room, packing.”

“Packing?” Boba repeats, a shiver of worry going down his spine. “Why?”

Just then, Padmé storms through the open doors to the sleeping quarters, fury on her face and her hands clenched tight.

“We’ve been recalled to Coruscant,” she announces.

 

* * *

 

 

If there’s one good thing about the Senate building, it’s how good the drinks are; even if a Senator doesn’t enjoy tea or caf, they’re sure to keep some good blends around for when they entertain Senators who do, and it’s a given that the blends must be very fine indeed as everyone tries to impress one another. And the finest teas, of course, are in the Chancellor’s office.

“Surely you visit me for more than my tea selection, my dear,” Chancellor Palpatine says lightly.

Padmé laughs. “Of course I do, Chancellor, but I have to give it the attention it deserves, don’t I? You’ve spent so much time assembling it, after all.”

The Chancellor smiles, his lined face softening. “Of course,” he agrees. “Though I do fear I call you up here too often; yet forgive an old man for wanting to spend time with others from Naboo.”

“I completely understand,” Padmé reassures him. “And really, I don’t mind - you’re not the only one who sometimes gets tired of all the Coruscanti aesthetics.”

Technically, she’s making her report on Mandalore to the Supreme Chancellor; but Padmé’s meetings with Chancellor Palpatine are all far less formal than that. He was the Senator when she was Queen, after all, and here in the Senate when it’s rare to talk to someone from even the same sector it’s a relief to relax and meet with someone from home. Dormé is similarly relaxed, though she’s still refusing to let Padmé out of her sight; “I leave for five minutes and you almost get killed,” she’d said. “Cordé can stay home all they like, but I’m not going to sleep well unless I’m sure you’re okay.”

That’s another thing that Chancellor Palpatine and Padmé have in common - sometimes he laments that his guards barely let him eat without first sampling the food for poison. Neither of them really _mind_ , of course; there’s a war on, and the Chancellor is more of a target than anyone else. But it still gets tiring, sometimes, how careful they need to be.

Dormé is relaxed, though, and the Chancellor’s guards are a quiet presence at the doorway; the three of them sit on soft red couches and sip their warm, sweet tea as Padmé goes over what had happened during the negotiations.

“There really isn’t much that Mandalore has to export,” she concludes with a sigh. “Duchess Satine is willing to let us use their hyperspace routes on a probationary basis, but other than that, the Council of Netural Systems really is that - just a council committed to staying out of the war. Any negotiations about imports, exports, and hyperspace lanes will have to be done on a planet-by-planet basis.”

Chancellor Palpatine nods. “I see,” he murmurs. “Well, that’s definitely better than nothing; it’s a shame that this will be so time-consuming, but some of those planets have resources we desperately need.” He puts his tea down on the side-table, a small frown growing on his face. “I must admit, though, I’m slightly worried that Jango Fett decided to remain on Mandalore; as far as I was aware, there was some… tension between him and the Duchess’s government.”

Padmé pauses as she considers what to say. Boba still hasn’t told her what he overheard when he followed his father, but she could definitely see that something had changed. Fett had told her as much, when he’d let her know he was staying behind.

“I’ve got some things to investigate,” he’d said, careful but not hesitating. “Some things to find out - that I think the Duchess would be interested to know about. People to track, assassins to find. That sort of thing.”

He hadn’t mentioned anything about her working with Boba and the spying they’d done; she still has no clue whether that meant he hadn’t noticed, or whether it meant he just hadn’t mentioned it.

Padmé hasn’t breathed a word about Boba to Chancellor Palpatine, of course; the Chancellor may be a close friend of hers, but she understands that there are some things she can’t tell him.

“I wouldn’t say that the tension has been resolved,” she says, because that’s definitely true. “But I would say that perhaps they’ve found some common ground.”

Chancellor Palpatine’s frown doesn’t ease, but he doesn’t say anything more on the topic. Padmé thinks that it’s sweet, how worried he is about everyone’s safety; he was worried when she first said she’d be bringing Fett with her, too.

Speaking of people being worried about her, though - “How is the rest of the war effort going?” she asks, trying to be nonchalant. “I’m afraid I didn’t have much time to keep up with the news during the negotiations, but…”

Chancellor Palpatine’s frown finally lightens, and he looks at her with a raised eyebrow. “The war effort in general?” he asks, the hint of a smile on his face.

Padmé does _not_ blush. “Of course, the war effort in general,” she says.

“Well… I understand that General Windu is doing well on Ryloth,” he says. “Let’s see. General Tiin has nearly won over Christophsis, and there’s rumors of a rebellion on Onderon…”

“How is General Skywalker doing?” Dormé asks innocently.

Padmé kicks her.

The Chancellor’s blue eyes twinkle. “I hear General Skywalker has been searching for various hidden outposts scattered around the Outer Rim,” he says.

“Really?” Padmé sits up straight. “He–”

“General Shmi Skywalker,” Chancellor Palpatine clarifies with a smile. “Why, was there some specific Jedi that you were curious about, my dear?”

It seems that there’s no way to preserve her dignity; it’s lucky that she’s only around friends, and faceless Senate guards.

“Of course not,” Padmé says, sitting up very straight and very properly, not meeting Chancellor Palpatine or Dormé’s eyes. “And as much as I enjoy these meetings, Chancellor, it looks like your next appointment is here.”

“Really?” the Chancellor says innocently. “And here I thought that Senator Taa wasn’t supposed to arrive for another half an hour. Besides, I’ve been hearing some very interesting rumors about General Skywalker - and his new padawan, of course - and their campaign on Geonosis. Apparently, he’s been very heroic - _dashing_ , almost–”

“We’re leaving now,” Padmé announces. “Chancellor Palpatine, please let me know if you want any more clarification on what happened on _Mandalore_.”

“Of course,” the Chancellor calls as she practically drags Dormé out the door. “And take some time off, Senator Amidala; you look like you need to get more sleep.”

“You do,” Dormé agrees once they’re out the door.

Padmé rolls her eyes. “You two need to stop ganging up on me,” she says.

Dormé shrugs. “If you say so,” she says. “Though if I hadn’t helped, you wouldn’t have known about how _Anakin_ is–”

“I can still fire you,” Padmé grumbles.

“No you can’t,” Dormé says, and grins.

Padmé needs better friends. These ones keep interfering in _her_ private business, with their… their _scheming_ and their _plotting_ and their–

“Besides, I filched some of the Chancellor’s tea, that blend that Cordé likes,” Dormé says.

Padmé sighs. At least her friends sometime scheme on her side. “All right. Let’s go make sure they and Boba haven’t broken anything too much.”

 

* * *

 

 

Boba’s not an idiot.

That doesn’t mean he has to be happy about going back to Coruscant with the Senator. Staying on Mandalore all by himself would have ended badly, however much he wants to make sure his buir is okay; coming back to Coruscant was the only viable option, unless he wanted to let his buir know that he’d snuck along.

He doesn’t have to be happy about being back on Coruscant, but… the Senate building isn’t too bad, all things considered. There’s a ridiculous amount of security, but there’s also so many people coming and going that Boba can basically do what he wants, so long as he stays disguised as one of Amidala’s attendants.

Case in point: Senator Tal Merrik just waves him through the door once he says he has a gift from Senator Amidala to Mandalore’s senator. It’s even true, which is the best part, he thinks as he sets the small glass carving of Sundari on the Senator’s desk. Amidala had needed the gift delivered - “A reminder of home, for one who must no doubt miss it” - and this lets Boba see Mandalore’s senator’s rooms, and the Death Watch symbol on the screen of the datapad he quickly closes, and how interesting it is that he has clearly recent blaster calluses on his hands.

Most incoming and outgoing communications are public in the Senate record, though of course the details are private; Boba checks who Senator Merrik’s been talking to, and beyond the expected calls to Mandalore there are an unusual amount of both official and semi-official calls to the governor of Concordia. (He tells Padmé, who probably tells the Duchess; he’d rather go straight to his buir, but at least this way Boba’s name is out of it.)

That’s only _one_ of the interesting things going on in the Senate, only one of the secrets that Boba can feel filling the air; that, though, means that Boba stays up late reading about all the different histories of various aspects of Senate life. Again.

Padmé stays up too, working on her research; it’s become a sort of routine, maybe a sort of ritual for the both of them. If he has a question about politics or culture (or, on one strange and memorable occasion, entomology), he can ask her, and she’ll put down her datapad for a few minutes and they’ll chat about how weird the Senate is. If she has a question about bounty hunting and usual prices for dealing with Hutts and other random outer rim knowledge Boba’s grown up with, she’ll ask him, and he’ll put down his datapad and rest his eyes for a few minutes while they talk about that.

Sometimes Cordé or Dormé will stay up, though not often; Padmé doesn’t ask him many questions on those nights, like she’s scared she’ll put her handmaidens at greater risk if they know more about what she’s reaserching. Which is… well, not really unreasonable; Boba is already smack-dab in the middle of this mess with Sith and clones and spies, but even though Cordé and Dormé are helping Padmé, they’re nowhere near as entangled in it as she is. On the nights one of them stays up, everyone generally ends up going to bed before the sun starts to rise - which is probably one of the reasons why they do it, honestly.

Boba can’t complain. Here without any of his cloned brothers, with Beru and his buir both busy and avoiding each other - it’s nice to feel almost like he has some older sisters again.

And, of course, younger siblings have a responsibility to older siblings, too, so he’s definitely able to justify stealing Padmé’s datapad when it looks like she’s about to fall over and start snoring on it.

“Boba, I _need_ to keep working,” she protests, but ends up yawning halfway through the sentence. “There’s so much–”

“And if you miss something because you’re more than half asleep?” he asks, not letting go of the datapad. “Give me that–”

Padmé’s eyes narrow, and she yanks it back from Boba, then holds it up above her head - higher than he can reach.

Okay, so maybe he’s a little too sleep-deprived too, if he hadn’t seen that coming. He jumps for it, misses, then jumps for it again–

And knocks them both over, the datapad clattering to the floor with a thump as they land in a pile, knocking over a desk-lamp, a chair, and three other datapads from Padmé’s desk.

That hadn’t been his best plan.

“… Maybe we should call it a night,” Padmé admits, picking herself up.

“You think?” Boba asks dryly, reaching over to gather up the datapads. “Which one of these was…” _yours,_ he was going to say, but he glances down at the screen and stops.

Padmé kneels down next to him, gathering up the remaining datapads. “That one, yes,” she says.

“What file is this?” he asks quietly.

She pauses and frowns, looking at him carefully. “Some of Gardulla’s records, from a few months ago. The amounts and identities of various fund transfers, though not all of them have definite identities attached. These ones are for the same day that Beru, Anakin, and I were captured by her, then brought to Geonosis. I figured that would be a good place to start. What’s wrong?”

On the screen, he highlights a funds transfer - an exorbitant amount, but then they all are. There’s not much information in this entry; just the amount, the sale description, and the galactic coordinates of the buyer.

“For services rendered and goods transferred to a third party,” Padmé reads. “That’s vague, as their sale descriptions go, but hardly unusual–”

Boba shakes his head and swallows. “It’s not that.”

“What is it, then?” she asks.

“The galactic coordinates,” he says. “That’s Kamino.”

They’re quiet for a moment, as Padmé stares at the datapad.

“You’re sure,” she says flatly. “But this didn’t turn up anything when I ran it through a locations index - no, I’m an idiot, Kamino was erased from the Jedi archives so it stands to reason it’d be erased from other databases.” She takes the datapad back, pulling up that sale’s information and doing… something. Cross-referencing, maybe. “Let’s see. This doesn’t have the account number, but maybe if we can find a matching sale in Kamino’s records at the same time we can figure something out.”

“You _have_ Kamino’s records?” Boba asks incredulously.

Padmé smiles - a little mysteriously, a little wickedly. “Kamino, as a new member of the Republic, was required to submit any and all relevant information to a committee of Senators determining their suitability for membership. Of course, financial records aren’t normally requested - but as their planetary business is financial in nature, I implied to Senator Organa that it would probably be wise to request a full list of interplanetary sale records, both public and private. For archival purposes, of course.”

“And once something is in the Senate record, it can’t be erased,” Boba says, his eyes wide. Politicians are _cunning_.

The datapad beeps.

“Found it,” Padmé says triumphantly.

All hints of tiredness or sleep deprivation are gone from both of them; Boba can practically feel the adrenaline in his veins, for all that they’re sitting on the floor of a darkened room going through data.

“The funds transfer came from…” Padmé pauses. “The account holding the funds paid to create the clones.”

Wait, _what_?

“That doesn’t make any sense,” Boba says, frowning. “That account wasn’t supposed to have any withdrawals, except for what the cloners used. But you’re saying there _was_ a withdrawal, and that was sent to _Gardulla_?”

Padmé scrolls through the datapad. “It says the withdrawal was approved after an accidental transfer of funds into the account,” she reads. “Someone accidentally transferred extra funds in, so they were allowed to transfer those same funds out again.”

Boba lets out a breath as he realizes what that means. “They used it as a waypoint to hide their trail,” he says. “There’s no way it was really accidental - this is so nobody can track it.”

“Nobody can track it if they don’t have access to _all_ of Kamino’s recent records,” Padmé corrects, again working her datapad magic. “There was a transfer into the same account earlier that day, of the same amount of funds.” She takes a deep breath. “And there’s a Republic bank account number attached.”

This is what they’ve been looking for.

“This is traceable,” Boba says quietly. “We can work with this - someone paid Gardulla for mysterious services rendered and something transferred to a third party. That fits what happened that day. That someone also knew about Kamino, to transfer the money through there.”

Padmé grins at him, and he grins back.

“I’m going check if there are any more transfers to Gardulla routed through Kamino,” she says. “Just in case - but better thorough than not, and we might get multiple accounts to track, if something like this happened a few times. Can you figure out what bank this number is from?”

“Sure,” Boba says, and pulls up a list of Republic banks. Most of them are just subsidiaries of the Banking Clan or a few other groups, of course, but they still pretend to be separate, so he has to go through the list and figure out which formatting each particular bank uses.

He’s finally figured it out - it’s not one of the Banking Clan’s, but one of the Galactic Credit Union’s - when he looks up and he sees Padmé, again, staring at her datapad, a frown on her face.

“There’s a second transfer routed through Kamino,” she says slowly. “From the same day, just a few hours after, that’s about a third the amount - but in Kamino’s records, the funds transfer comes from a completely different account than the one you’re looking at. There’s also a location, in the description - _delivered to the Ring of Kafrene_.”

“That’s just a trading post, it’d just be another waypoint for whatever they were transferring,” Boba says, tapping his fingers against the datapad. “Though, whatever that was - if the previous price was for capturing and moving three people, and this is a third of that–”

There’s a small _crash_ of things falling to the floor.

Padmé and Boba both whirl around, looking at the doorway.

Dormé is standing there, her face pale; it looks like she’s dropped two mugs of some warm drink. She was bringing them something warm, to help them stay awake or lull them to sleep, and she must have heard…

“Dormé,” Padmé says, standing. “How much did you hear?”

She doesn’t reply directly, instead just… standing there, in the doorway. “A third of the money,” she repeats. “A few hours later, on the day you were caught - that’s for _people_ being transferred–”

“This has to stay a secret,” Padmé says, sounding almost as scared as Dormé. “This _can’t_ get out, do you understand–”

“That’s when Master Qui-Gon vanished,” Dormé says.

Padmé stops, her mouth hanging open in shock - the same way Boba feels.

“I was looking for Master Kenobi or Master Skywalker, to tell them about your distress signal,” Dormé continues quietly, leaning on the doorway to support herself. “I found Master Jinn, told him the coordinates - he told Master Dooku and I that he was going, and Master Dooku passed it on to the Council, just in case he needed backup. But then the war started, and he never came back, everyone assumed he’d gotten killed…”

“But he’d gotten captured,” Boba continues, when Dormé trails off. “Gardulla caught him, then sent him to the Ring of Kafrene, where whoever it was picked him up. And we know he wasn’t killed, not then, because otherwise it’d say _assassination_ or _target killed_.” He doesn’t say the obvious - that he could have been killed since then, a captive of the Sith, or of someone working for them.

Padmé picks up the mugs Dormé had dropped. “I have to tell Anakin,” she says quietly. “We can keep tracking those bank transfers, but he’s going to want to follow up on the Ring of Kafrene.”

Neither of them argue; Boba can tell that this is something Beru will want to know too. Neither of them have met this Master Jinn, but he’s important to people they care about; plus, he sounds like a pretty cool Jedi.

And he’d have to be a good person, for the Sith to want to get rid of him. Only - why hadn’t they just killed him, then? _How_ had they caught him?

He doesn’t want to ask out loud and make Dormé worry more, but Dormé’s smart - she’s probably thinking about the same questions he is. Padmé too, from the steely look on her face. Boba’s definitely glad that they have her determination on _their_ side.

“Boba,” Padmé says quietly. “We don’t know when your father will be coming back to Coruscant. You don’t have to continue investigating with us, especially when we might have to travel off-planet–”

Boba rolls his eyes. “Of course I’m still gonna help you out,” he interrupts. “Dad can handle himself. But…” he glances over at Dormé. “If you’re actually going to let us help with the investigation, I’m staying.”

His buir will understand. Beru will understand - neither of them will be happy about it, but they’ll understand. And if he gets the chance to actually fight some time–

The Duchess’s words cross his mind. _Too young_ \- and the expression she’d worn, like it was the worst thing in the world–

Boba shakes the thought out of his mind. He gets that fighting is awful, that people dying is terrible, but if it means protecting his friends, he’ll do what he has to. Just like his buir.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Mando'a**  
>  K’oyacyi - can mean "cheers," but literally a command: "Stay alive."  
> Gedetir - plead, beg (conjugated "gedeti," I hope.)  
> Nu kyr’adyc, shi taab’echaaj’la - "Not gone, merely marching away." Tribute to a dead comrade.  
> Ba'buir - grandparent.
> 
> I'm so, so sorry it's taken this long - and unfortunately the next chapter also might take a while. I may get some writing done over spring break, but I've also got a lot of other stuff going on. There's a chance that I'll decide I need to write out the whole rest of this part before I can post the individual chapters, which may delay posting... a while. I'll try to get at least the next chapter out, but chapters after that... ugh. College is a mess.
> 
> Next chapter is going to be an interlude, a look at some different events from some new - or old - characters' POVs. Because I'm indecisive and can barely stick to one viewpoint for a whole chapter, let alone a whole story.
> 
> Thank you so much everyone for reading this and commenting and generally being wonderful people. And thank you for being patient, and I'm sorry that it'll still be a little longer; I hope that I can make it worth the wait :)


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Different perspectives can cast different lights on different situations.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy May the 4th, everyone!
> 
> This chapter is more of an interlude, departing from our main perspective characters because I'm indecisive.

 

When Satine Kryze looks out over her city, she sees many things. Smoke rising, almost brushing the top of the enclosing dome; the shine of buildings, the blur of hovercars. She can’t hear much, not from this distance, but she knows what she’d hear wandering the streets - people talking, people laughing, people shouting. Machines whirring and children playing.

She remembers what it was like when she was young, before the civil war, before her whole family - almost her whole family - was killed. There had been people talking then, too, people laughing and machines whirring and hovercars speeding.

But children hadn’t played freely on the streets.

It had been quieter, too, less shouting - or more shouting, if there was a fight. But raised voices often led to raised weapons, so people kept their heads down and stayed quiet, or they looked up and bared their teeth and challenged others to bother them.

Satine hadn’t really lied to Fett; there _had_ been attempts on her life when she was eleven. But those - and the ones that had happened when she was younger - those had been attempts on the line of Mandalore’s royalty, not on her personally. Those had come later, and come often; but she’d known how to deal with them, then.

She’d known how to deal with things like that ever since she’d been eleven, had gotten restless and snuck out of the palace and onto those streets where it wasn’t safe, to be a child of Mandalore. Eleven - not old enough to be challenged, by the old ways, but when the bar was set at thirteen children were being challenged anyways, and a couple of years made no difference to bullies looking for a fight.

Now, she looks out over her city, and children laugh and play and don’t have to fight, and people call her _weak_.

“You were the Mand’alor,” Satine says quietly, not looking away from the view.

Jango Fett hasn’t made a noise, standing behind her. “You’re still battlefield-sharp,” he notes.

Satine snorts. “It’s rather hard to get treated for post-traumatic stress when you’re responsible for an entire planet,” she says. “Though I suppose you’d know in a way - would you?” It’s a sharp question; Satine has forsaken weapons, but she knows how well words can wound.

“I might,” Fett admits. “But not recently. I left that all behind a decade ago.”

“Oh, longer than that, I think,” Satine snaps, then takes a deep breath and lets it out. “Sushel Nau’ur. Kaia the Heavy-Handed. Jaster Mereel. Then you, Jango Fett - and who after you?”

“I don’t think there is a standing Mand’alor,” Fett says, and Satine clenches her hands.

“You know,” she starts, then shakes her head. “What am I saying, of course you know. The Duchy and the Mand’alor - we were supposed to work _together_. The diplomacy of the ruling house and the strength of the commander. The Mand’alor would keep a handle on the warriors, make sure they kept to the code, end any threats to our people. The Duchess - or Duke - would be the face to the rest of the galaxy, would be a warrior of the voice, would end battles before they began and keep the homeworld safe for our children to grow.”

The both of them stand there in silence for a long few moments, staring out at the city.

“And I have,” Satine says.

“Some would say you’ve torn us away from a way of life,” Fett observes. Not accusingly, carefully neutral - testing.

It’s nothing she hasn’t heard before.

“Some would say,” Satine says. “Would they? And what would the others say?” She shakes her head. “If I ruled over people who wanted to be warriors, people who wanted to fight and die in armor, and I told them to set down their weapons and become peaceful - do you think they would listen to me? No. Some wanted to keep their bloody ways, and I told them if they did they would have to do it _somewhere else_. And some left, and some fought, and the majority let out a sigh of relief and put down their weapons.”

Fett remains quiet.

“Or, should I say - my _father_ told them to set down their weapons and become peaceful, and I reaped the consequences,” she says, then finally turns to face him. “That should _not_ have been my job. But it was, because our Mand’alor was off somewhere else in the galaxy, leaving just me and the Jedi to piece our people back together. But that’s not the point,” she says, because it’s not. For all her bitterness, they have more important things to do.

“Then what is?” Fett asks.

She takes her datapad from the table where she’d set it down, pulling up the file. “The warrior who tried to kill me,” she says. “They won’t give their name, of course, wouldn’t say anything beyond cursing at me - but when you get sworn at as much as I have, you start to pick up nuances. They trained, or at least spent a large amount of time, on Concordia.”

Concordia - it’s not the original name of the moon, of course. _Kom’rk-Verd_ , the warrior’s gauntlet slurred into Basic, its meaning shifting from a battleground to the sound of agreement. Satine had hopes that the moon would settle down, but it seems her hopes have been dashed; even more a disappointment than the assassin, the moon’s environment has almost begun recovering from the devastation wreaked on it by the last few wars. If anything else happens, it’s more likely than not to go the same way as Mandalore, uninhabitable save for protected zones.

“The current governor has a… lineage that could be suspect,” Satine says carefully. “His father was highly involved in the old Death Watch; that’s far from enough to start so much as an inquiry, let alone an investigation. However, I’ve recieved a tip that something might be going on with him, and in combination with the assassin using some specifically Concordian insults, it’s enough to make me suspicious.”

“What sort of tip was it?” Fett asks, his eyes narrowing a tad.

“Why do you ask?” Satine says calmly.

Of course she knows the origin of this tip - of course she knows that Senator Amidala’s visit hadn’t been without a stowaway. This is _Mandalore_ , and she is the Duchess; that particular intruder had been deemed harmless and allowed to continue. It was sort of adorable, actually, Fett’s son sneaking around the palace, even managing to disable most of the alarms, watching over his father - when it was clear that Jango Fett had no clue.

At least, Satine _thinks_ that Fett hadn’t noticed.

Fett shrugs. “Any tip could be real, or could be faked - planted to put suspicion on whoever it is, and away from those who’re really responsible.”

“Of course,” Satine says. She does know where this tip came from, and is definitely amused by how Fett’s son appears to be making friends with Amidala, but it’s a valid point. “That’s why the investigator has to be someone who will consider all possible angles, while at the same time being someone whose presence could perhaps prompt unexpected action from whoever is leading this new Death Watch.”

Fett just looks at her for a long moment.

“You want me to investigate this,” he says.

Satine raises an eyebrow. “You are the logical choice,” she points out, as if she doesn’t already know exactly why he’s so taken aback by this.

“But you don’t like me,” he says calmly. “I’ve sworn to you, but you don’t trust my word, and you don’t exactly want me in the middle of a mess with spies and warriors coming after you.”

“Since when,” she says, “Has being the Duchess ever been about what I want?”

That statement sits in the air between them, solid and true.

She sighs and again turns away, faces towards her city, towards what _she’s_ sworn to protect. “I don’t like you, and I don’t trust you to act in my best interest; however, I trust that if this Death Watch is becoming a threat to Mandalore, you will not let a group of murderers and saboteurs rampage across the galaxy.” She looks down - the stone railing, her hands upon it. “I do not condone violence. I do not _want_ to condone violence, and I _want_ to not condone violence; some days, I want to be able to fight for myself, and on those days I often have nightmares for the following week. I _need to keep my people safe_.”

“You don’t trust me or my word,” Fett says. “But believe me - I’ll do whatever I can to keep all of our people safe.”

“I do believe you,” Satine says. It’s mostly true.

She does believe him, but Satine is aware enough to know that she doesn’t _want_ to believe him. So much suffering–

But being the Duchess has never been about what she wants, so she places her trust in Jango Fett, as most of her people have placed their trust in her.

 

* * *

 

 

The flight to Concordia feels too short for all the thoughts he has in his mind.

Jango is a bounty hunter; that’s what he is, that’s _who_ he is. So when the old Duke had decreed nonviolence, had condemned _his_ brothers, when the Duchess had taken her throne and kept speaking of peace - no, he hadn’t come back. He hadn’t helped defend the royal line, hadn’t held his oaths to them; he’d thought they hadn’t been holding their oaths to _him_.

But the way the Duchess talks…

He’d met her once, before, when they’d thought Death Watch was nothing but a distant memory and that everything would calm down in a year or two. She couldn’t have been more than eight, wide-eyed and quiet, but firey behind her shyness. What had happened, to turn the little girl into the Duchess, steely and uncompromising?

 _Eleven_ , she’d said, and Jango can see it. He of all people knows what years of war will do to a child.

What years of _anything_ will do to a child, stubborn and strong and not giving in without a fight–

 _Not. Now_ , he tells himself, gritting his teeth and willing the ship to go faster.

It doesn’t, but he lands soon anyways.

Vizsla comes and greets him, not flinching but distinctly pausing as he first sees Jango. “Welcome to Concordia,” he says after a few moments. “I hope your flight wasn’t too long?”

“It was fine,” Jango says.

“Ah,” Vizsla says, and smiles a fake smile. “Good.”

He leads Jango through the government building, pointing out bits of history and the like; Jango nods silently or makes noncommital noises, watching Vizsla through the corner of his helmet the whole time.

Pre Vizsla, governor of Concordia - son of Tor Vizsla, who Jango had killed… decades ago, now. He doesn’t look much like his father, doesn’t move like him either. Of course he wouldn’t; he’d have been young when Tor was killed, wouldn’t have had the chance to learn directly from his father, would probably barely remember him.

Because Jango had killed him.

If Jango is very, very lucky, he won’t be looking at a blood feud. Well, _another_ blood feud, like the one that had started when Vizsla had killed Jango’s own father, then his newly-found buir too, leaving Jango alone to enact vengeance–

And if Jango is killed here, then Boba will be left to kill Vizsla. If Vizsla has children or students, they’ll go after Boba, then, and who knows, by that point Boba may have some of his own, and they’ll–

Maybe the Duchess had had a point about violence perpetuating violence.

That doesn’t mean he’s willing to give up his armor, his weapons and his hunting - but either way, his life isn’t the life he wants for his son.

Now the question is - what does _Vizsla_ want?

They’ve been trailed by two guards the whole time, of course - Governor Vizsla’s guards, which is sort of ridiculous because Jango can tell that Vizsla’s a warrior, and not a shabby one either. But as Vizsla leads him to a large, ostentaneous dining hall, he waves a hand, casually dismissing the guards, and they’re left alone.

“I hope the meal is to your liking,” Vizsla says, his voice the slightest bit too hesitant and precise. “And that the tour was informative.”

“It looks… nice,” Jango says, internally wincing a bit after that comes out of his mouth. “Both the meal and the palace, I mean.”

They stand in silence for a long moment.

Jango sighs. “Okay,” he says. “Can you explain what the kriff’s going on here?”

“I’m not sure I know what you mean–” Vizsla begins, but there’s no heart in it, and he stops when Jango pulls off his helmet, setting it on the table beside him. That was a surefire way to shut someone up, take your helmet off and thunk it down, meet their eyes; he’d learned that from Beru, when she–

“Look,” Jango says, like he can’t see Vizsla’s eyes darting across his face, lighting on scars - some scars that this little Vizsla might know the stories of. “I want answers about what’s happening on this moon, and we both know that neither of us are fools. It’s going to save the both of us a headache if you just show me.”

Vizsla’s eyes narrow, and _now_ he looks more like his father than Jango is comfortable with. “What, exactly, do you think you’re going to be _shown_ if I agree?”

Jango sighs - expressively, with his helmet off. “You’re calling yourselves Death Watch - whether that’s like the Death Watch that I wiped out or whether you’re still just the Brothers of Mandalore renamed? I have no way of knowing that. Either way, you’ve got a camp on this moon, probably near here. I want to see it.”

Vizsla watches him for a few moments longer, and Jango keeps his face like iron.

“Fine,” he says finally. “I’ll send the coordinates to your helmet; take one of the speeders in the hangar, and come after dark.”

Then they sit down and have dinner. Politely.

The meal isn’t poisoned, but that’s probably the nicest thing that Jango can say about it; there’s nothing wrong with the _food_ , but he’s always preferred a simple fight to keeping a smile on his face and lying between his teeth.

Dark can’t come soon enough.

Vizsla retires early, of course - he needs to rest (he needs to prepare his warriors and don his armor, Jango translates).

He was right, their camp is close; smart if you need to get back and forth quickly, but not smart if you need to hide from an incoming investigator. The speeder ride is equivalently short, but still gives Jango too much time to think. Thinking about Vizsla, about heritage and cycles of violence, about what those things lead to. The kind of suffering children have to live through, and some children–

The camp isn’t permanent, but it’s clearly been here too long to be truly temporary any more; Jango would guess half a year, enough time for people to start making their own additions to the tents but not long enough for any actual buildings to pop up.

Vizsla greets him in full armor, black and blue with a cream trident marking above his visor. And a distinctive hilt on his belt.

Jango doesn’t let his stride change, doesn’t give any indication that he’s noticed it - but if Vizsla has been trained with the Darksaber, he’s a much more formidable opponent than Jango had assumed.

There’s a cluster of other warriors with him, probably his lieutenants; of the four, Jango recognizes two.

“Jorad,” he says when he gets close enough, and the other bounty hunter waves a little. “And here I thought you’d _tell_ me if there was anything interesting going on.”

Jorad shrugs. “Nobody was really sure how you’d react,” he says. “And you sounded like you had some sort of a mess going on… well. You didn’t warn any of us about _that_.”

Jango shrugs, mirroring him. “Well. Like you said - some sort of a mess.”

“You’ll have to tell us,” Jorad says; not an imperative, but just Jorad being interested.

“Maybe,” Jango says, and it takes a lot of effort to keep it from sounding like a _no_ \- he doesn’t _want_ to tell them, but he may _have_ to.

“Bo,” Jorad says. “You’ve met Jango Fett, right?”

And here’s the _other_ one that Jango recognizes.

“Briefly,” says Bo Katan Kryze, Satine’s younger sister. “Just around, picking up jobs. Not sure we’ve been introduced, though - I’m Bo Katan.”

She doesn’t include a clan name, or maybe she wants him to think that _Katan_ is her family name; who even knows if Vizsla knows who she is? Whether or not she and Satine are still sisters, the Duchy’s bloodline carries a lot of sway, and whether Bo Katan is trying to use it or trying to avoid it isn’t something he can ask about without tipping the balance.

“You’ve worked with Sarad a few times, haven’t you?” Jango asks, because Beru had mentioned it - one of the few things she’d shared with him about her jobs, in case it became important.

Bo Katan nods. “Haven’t seen her around lately,” she says. “Did she get caught up in your mess, too?”

Yes.

“I couldn’t really say,” Jango says flatly. “She’s off on her own right now.” He turns to Vizsla, ending the topic. “So. Looks like you have a little army all built up right on Mandalore’s doorstep.”

“You say that like it’s a bad thing,” Vizsla says, his voice smoother and stronger now that he’s in his armor, at his command. “We want to bring back the old ways, the _true_ ways, deposing the false Duchess–”

“You can save the speech,” Jango says. “That part was pretty obvious from the whole _bombing Sundari_ thing.”

Vizsla stops, thrown a little off-balance.

“Which honestly sort of confuses me,” he continues, clasping his arms behind his back and pacing a bit, to and fro; Vizsla straightens like he’s facing a drill sergeant, which was Jango’s intention. “Because while you’ve been sitting bored on this moon taking pot-shots at noncombatants, I’ve been out in the galaxy fighting battles that are _actually_ important.”

Vizsla and his lieutenants are silent, all staring at Jango, a good portion of the camp behind them watching from a greater distance.

“Battles like what?” one of the unfamiliar lieutenants snaps. “This is our _home–_ ”

“We are _mando’ade_ ,” Jango snaps right back, turning sharply to face them. “The galaxy is our home, the hyperlanes our guide; our ways the steady ground beneath us, our souls as stars whirling through the void to die in glory. I fight for my _family_ , for my ad’ika and his ori’vod. I fight against the Sith who threatened them.”

There’s a sharp inhale from across the camp; eyes and visors turn to Vizsla.

“Oh, but you’ve made an alliance, haven’t you,” Jango says softly. “What did they promise you - power? Glory? Bloodshed? Have you forgotten our tales of the Sith?”

“The Sith lie, we know that, we’re no fools,” Vizsla says coldly. “Are the Jedi any better? It was you who faced the aftermath of Galidraan–”

“You’re right,” Jango agrees, surprising Vizsla again. “ _I_ faced the aftermath of Galidraan.” He pauses, deliberately. “I faced the aftermath of what Tor Vizsla did, didn’t I?”

Pre Vizsla is silent.

“And here I am again,” he says, his voice soft but carrying to the whole camp. “Face to face with another Death Watch.”

“We’re not–” Bo Katan starts.

“Not what?” Jango says before she can say any more. “Not going after noncombatants? Not sowing destruction instead of fighting for what’s right? Not ignoring the code of honor, you’re challenging your rivals outright?”

Bo Katan shakes her head - with the way she’s speaking, the way she steps forwards, the way the others respond, it seems like she’s almost as much a leader in this camp as Vizsla is.

“What are we _supposed_ to do?” she says. “What do we do, if not fight for what we believe, for our culture, our _people_?”

This - he thinks of Beru.

“I had a daughter, once,” Jango says. He hopes she’ll forgive him for this. “I had a daughter, and she used to be a slave.”

Bo Katan steps back, glances at Vizsla - Vizsla is watching him, listening.

Jango paces slowly, feeling the hints of rock beneath his boots. “She grew up a slave, and she survived - and every single day was a battle won. Not combat, but a fight all the same, and she _survived_. There’s no honor in slavery. No honor in anything like it, in taking a being and _not letting them fight_.” He pauses. “I am a warrior of Mandalore, and I can fight, for all that I can’t do so on Mandalorian soil; I can fight, so I fight to stop others from being hurt like that. I fight for money, for survival, for fun sometimes - but when I fight, I don’t leave the galaxy a worse place than I began.”

Jango turns, walks away from the camp, his message delivered.

Mostly.

“If there’s anyone interested,” he says, “In being a True Mandalorian again - you’re welcome to contact me.”

Then he leaves.

They’ll come, or they won’t - but either way, they’ll be distracted from Sundari for a while, at least. And if they do come…

Jango’s no fool, and he knows that Boba will be looking into who’s behind this war, back in the Jedi Temple on Coruscant. Maybe his son will have some new information for him - and maybe Jango will be able to bring some help for digging deeper into the tangle this war has become.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

Rano keeps his breathing even as General Skywalker sits down in the chair next to his bed. He keeps his eyes closed and his body relaxed; just a sleeping clone here, nothing special. Really nothing special - he’s far from the only clone having to take an extended stay in the infirmary, after Leck took razor-wire to his leg and half of a squad only got _mostly_ out of the way of a detonator. Most of the other injuries - blaster-burns from droids, bruises from the fighting - were either easily fixable or quickly fatal, as most injuries tend to go. Rano himself only has another few days stuck in here, though Slick keeps looking at him like he’s crazy when he shows no inclination to disobey orders and escape the infirmary early. Slick is _weird_ , sometimes.

Their general is weird, too; this is far from the first time she’s come and sat at his bedside. She does it for all the clones who get stuck in the infirmary, but not this often.

“General,” says an exasperated voice from the door. Slick, which Rano can tell without even opening his eyes.

“Slick,” the General replies. “You’ve made your feelings on this topic quite clear.”

Slick - sighs. Rano can hear footsteps over to by his bed, over to the General’s side. “Yeah, maybe. He’s an idiot who always follows stupid orders and who keeps spying on you, but I… guess I’m glad he’s not dead.”

The General huffs out a little breath, probably in surprise. “Well. That does sound like a change of pace.”

“Well,” Slick says. “He was the one who finally convinced you not to be an idiot about taking risks, so I have to give him some credit.”

“Yes, I suppose,” the General says.

Rano’s been stuck in this infirmary bed for a week - well, a week and a half, but for the first half he was sedated in bacta. But it’s been a week and a half, still chasing Grievous; the General hasn’t been happy about it, has probably gone off and cried to herself more times than any of them have noticed, but she hasn’t been going in alone. She’s been taking backup, keeping her promise, letting them fight with her.

He bets that she never forgets all the clones who have died on her orders, and he wishes she would; it weighs on her.

“Although,” she says, “That doesn’t seem like - what did you say, _an idiot who always follows stupid orders?_ ”

“Oh, sure, he’ll break ranks if it’s something like that,” Slick says. “But he always assumes that the people making the orders know more than they really do.”

Rano wants to protest - isn’t it just reasonable to assume that the people in charge of this war know what’s going on? If orders are given, they’re given for a _reason_. General Skywalker’s reasons had been bad, so he’d told her why; the other orders–

“But that’s not the point,” Slick continues. “Sorry to interrupt your moping, General, but you’ve got a comm call.”

“Surely they haven’t found Grievous’s next base that quickly,” she murmurs. “We didn’t get a trace on him this time, and after Ileenium it took the slicers days to get his destination from the base’s databanks.”

“I don’t think so, sir,” Slick says. “This call’s from the other General Skywalker.”

She stands so quickly that Rano can feel the air displacement brush across his back. “Oh. Why didn’t you _say_ so?”

“You looked so busy being sad, I wasn’t sure if you wanted to be interrupted–”

“ _Slick_ –”

Their voices trail away as Slick leads the General out of the infirmary. Rano waits ten minutes, his breaths slow and even, before he rolls over and slips a specialized comm unit into his ear. He flicks it on, waits for the static to die down.

“… Sounds like you had an adventure,” the General’s voice says, coming through loud and clear from the microscopic bug he’s placed on her belt. She can tell when he’s eavesdropping in person, he knows; he keeps doing it so that she doesn’t think to look for other methods of listening in.

“Well,” says the other General Skywalker. “It was… unexpected, that’s for sure.”

She laughs. “Well, I can honestly say that I think you and Ahsoka will do well together,” she says. “Do you know if there’s any chance we could meet in person some time soon? I’m curious to see how you’re doing with her form.”

“Maybe,” the other General Skywalker - _General Anakin_ says. “I… well. How secure is your connection?”

He can hear his General sigh through the comm. “I have a perpetual eavesdropper out for my safety,” she says. “Other than that it’s… as secure as military channels always are, of course.”

Rano snorts. _Secure as military channels always are_ \- that’s a resounding _no_ to whatever the younger General Skywalker wants to talk about.

But… he’s not listening in right now. (At least, not in any way she _should_ be able to find out about.)

Why does she think that someone’s eavesdropping?

“Oh, good,” the other General says, his tone sarcastic. “Well, you’ll be hearing it officially soon enough - we had another run-in with Ventress. Or, well, Obi-Wan had another run-in with Ventress; Ahsoka, Beru, and I showed up partway through, and she ran.”

“I hope nobody was injured,” his General says. “She sounds like a very dangerous young woman.”

“Nobody was, outside of a few bruises,” the other General says. “I think Obi-Wan even had fun; you know how he is about wordplay, and apparently she gives as good as she gets.”

Rano can tell that there’s some sort of communication going on here, some hints they’re getting from each others’ words, but he can’t quite tell what they’re saying to each other beneath the first layer of words. General Skywalker will say one thing and mean another two - or sometimes not say anything at all, and just leave it to gestures and raised eyebrows to get her point across. As useful as his bugs are, there’s not much they can do in that kind of a situation.

Part of him wants to ask what the _point_ of watching over General Skywalker is - but he has his orders, and he has to trust that they’re for the best; Slick may think that’s a failing, but that’s what lets armies _function_. You have to trust your superiors, you have to trust your orders, or else the entire chain of command falls apart.

There’s a quiet _hiss_ of air as the infirmary door slides open, and Rano slips the comm out of his ear and pretends to be asleep.

“We both know you’re faking,” Slick says.

Rano doesn’t respond; it’s more likely than not that Slick is just fishing for a response.

“All right, have it your way,” Slick says. “This works. I want to talk, and I want you to listen. I don’t really like you, and you don’t really like me, and that’s fine. I meant what I said to the General; I can trust you on a battlefield, and you’re good at making sure she doesn’t get herself killed.”

Unwillingly, Rano lets out a little breath. Slick’s anger has been… well, he can deal with it; but it’s been a weight on him, always something to be wary of. This is… a bit of an unexpected relief.

“But,” Slick says, because of course there’s a _but_. “You’re spying on her, and I _don’t_ like that. Hey, you heard what I said earlier; you’re an idiot who listens to orders too much. I bet you didn’t like that at all, huh? And I bet I know how you justify it. You think that they all know better. You think that they have more information, that Dooku wants you to spy on General Skywalker for some _good reason_.”

Sometimes, Rano hates how blunt Slick can be, how he shoots straight for the heart of the matter.

Sometimes, Rano wishes that their trainers had noticed that; Slick would have made an _amazing_ black-ops agent.

“You spoke out against the General because she was being an idiot, trying to shield all of us with her own self,” Slick says, but now his tone is more soft. “You could see her doing that, and you could figure out her reasons.” He pauses, maybe for emphasis. “I bet you don’t know why General Dooku gave you those orders. I bet that if you tried hard enough, you could find out. And then you wouldn’t have to wonder - you’d _know_ if it was reasonable or not.”

Rano hadn’t been wondering. He _hadn’t_. Wondering means that he was doubting his orders, and he wasn’t–

“Don’t lie to yourself,” Slick says, turning; soft footsteps towards the door. “We all deserve the truth.”

The door slides closed.

Rano lies there in the dark, hearing only his own breaths and the pounding of his heart.

Then he slips the comm in.

He has _other_ things to worry about, _other_ things to listen to - she could be saying anything to the other General Skywalker, things which might be important for him to report. For… for whatever reasons General Dooku has. And she knows when someone is eavesdropping on her, so if he’s not spying on General Skywalker, who _is_? Not Slick, the timing doesn’t work, but who else of his siblings on this ship would care enough to listen in to her conversations?

“What does the Council have you doing, anyways?” the younger General asks, his voice clear in the comm. “I heard someting about you searching the Outer Rim for hidden bases - is that a thing we’re dealing with now, secret Separatist bases?”

“Ah,” General Skywalker says. “Um.”

 

* * *

 

 

“They have you tracking _who_?”

General Skywalker - General _Shmi_ Skywalker - sighs. “Ani…”

General Anakin Skywalker crosses his arms, the hologram’s blue tint not doing a thing to hide the glare on his face. “Are they out of their _minds_?”

“That’s what I asked, actually,” she admits, and her son relents slightly, shaking his head and relaxing his posture.

“You’re being careful, right?” he asks. “Taking precautions, going in with backup - you don’t have to face him alone.”

“I have been,” she reassures the other Jedi. “We watch his strategies, we come up with counters to them - but he runs and runs, and we can’t manage to track his retreat every time. Finding him after he fled Ileenium was luck, and we traced him through two more of his bases but then lost the signal. Now we have to wait for others to put us on his trail.”

Skywalker mutters something along the lines of “Shouldn’t have to track him at _all_ ,” then sighs. “I don’t like this war,” he says. “Being split up all the time, being pushed around to all corners of the galaxy without even asking - I don’t _like_ it.”

Master Skywalker looks at her son, her sympathy clear for all to see. “Ask Obi-Wan if he can work something out,” she suggests. “We’ve been doing a few resupply runs, in between chasing Grievous; if you need a resupply, we may be able to talk them into letting me handle it, and we could see each other for a few hours, at least.” She pauses and grins. “And I could see you and Ahsoka spar.”

Skywalker laughs, throwing back his head. “And you could correct my form, _Jedi Master?_ All right. I’ll talk with Obi-Wan, see what we can work out.”

“I should go,” Master Skywalker says regretfully. “It’s getting late, and… I need to be in my best form, just in case.”

“Of course,” Skywalker says. “Good luck. Stay safe, and may the Force be with you, Mom.”

“You too, Ani,” she says, and the hologram goes dark.

The Jedi stands there in the dark for a long moment, shadowed by the dim lights overhead, before turning and leaving the room.

In the ventilation system, through narrowed slats letting air into the room and through narrowed eyes still adjusting to the dark after the blue light of the hologram, Asajj Ventress leans back.

“Well,” says a quiet voice. “That was _interesting_.”

Asajj’s eyes haven’t adjusted to the dark yet when the narrow tube she’s in lights up red and Darth Zannah flickers into holographic being.

“Was it?” Asajj snaps, though of course it was. “She _knew_ I was here.”

“She knew _someone_ was here,” Darth Zannah corrects. “A regular eavesdropper, from the sound of things; you’ll have to be more careful in the future.”

Asajj glares down at the hologram, and at the shadowy black pyramid it emanates from. “Well, if I didn’t have to shield _your_ presence as well as mine–”

“Then you’d be out a valuable ally and source of information, and you’re short enough on both of those already,” Darth Zannah interrupts, waving her hand in dismissal. “Skywalker doesn’t seem to have told her about your little _talk_ with his padawan yet, but it’s clear he knows about it.”

Asajj grits her teeth, but doesn’t do anything about it; there’d be no point in arguing with Darth Zannah. All she can do is move on. “He did tell her some things, clearly. That I might, possibly, be willing to deal with the Jedi, at least.”

Darth Zannah raises her eyebrows, though it’s not very clear in the pure red light. “Really?”

“I _give as good as I get_ , especially in regards to Kenobi’s wordplay,” Asajj says. “And _nobody_ was injured - not even any clones, who the Skywalkers care about, but very few other Jedi would notice. That was on purpose; I can hardly deal with them if I kill those they care about.”

“ _Very_ good,” Darth Zannah says, her tone impressed, and Asajj is careful not to show how pleased she is at the praise. “That almost makes up for you being thrown off balance by a fourteen-year-old.”

Well, that gets rid of any need to hide her pleasure. “I could have just left you to sit gathering dust,” Asajj warns the holocron.

Darth Zannah laughs. “And lose such a valuable source of information?” she asks. “Little acolyte, you have a long way to go before your threats will scare a Sith. You wished to learn, and I have agreed to help you with this endeavor; but remember that knowledge has a price, and you _owe_ me.”

That… _is_ true. Asajj keeps her fury tight in hand; Darth Zannah will help her learn what she wishes to know, and in return Asajj will do… something for the ancient Sith. She hasn’t specified what that _something_ is, which more than anything makes Asajj worry. Open-ended deals are dangerous, she knows that as a daughter of Dathomir and a slave of Rattatak and Vulsion’s acolyte; but Darth Zannah had not given her another choice, and it’s not as though Asajj’s end is any less open. _What she wishes to know_ is many things, so she can keep stringing Darth Zannah along while the holocron waits and waits to collect her end of the bargain.

“I’ll have to be more careful if she does end up visiting Skywalker and Kenobi,” Asajj says, changing the topic. “The boys are easy enough to distract, but Tano and Whitesun are dangerous.”

“There’s every chance they’ll be busy with Grievous,” Darth Zannah says. “Even Tano; perhaps you can even try to find a way to hide from her senses.”

“Chance is not something to rely on,” Asajj says. It’s one of Darth Zannah’s own sayings, one she’d murmured once a few days ago; the holographic Sith’s views are a sharp contrast to Darth Vulsion’s gambling and risk-taking. Her master’s Shadow is more like Zannah in that; Asajj has eavesdropped on multiple conversations between Darth Vulsion and her Shadow where the Shadow had snapped that she was being too reckless.

Darth Zannah bares her teeth in a grin. “Is there a way you can make it more than chance, then?”

“Grievous could perhaps be convinced to be less subtle,” Asajj says, considering. “We dislike each other, but we’ve allied in the past, training under my Master and her Shadow.”

“He’s not a rival?” Darth Zannah asks - whether she’s actually interested, just fishing for information, or seeing what Asajj thinks… there’s no way of knowing.

Asajj makes a dismissive gesture. “He’s not Force-sensitive; he wields his lightsabers to slaughter Jedi, but he and I serve different functions. I as my Master’s apprentice should her Master fall, and he as the general of her armies, a face for the Republic to turn against.” She doesn’t voice her own concerns with the plan; Darth Vulsion is scheming, and her Sith Master is scheming, and those two schemes don’t always align, leading to… interesting results.

The order to leave certain Jedi alive at any cost, for example; Asajj has no clue whether that order had originated from Darth Vulsion or from her hidden Master.

She spends the next few hours wandering the ship, mapping out places to hide and observe from, as well as places to sleep, places to steal food from - there’s no way of knowing how long she’ll be on this ship.

There’s no way of knowing when her Master will start to wonder where she is.

But that’s something to worry about for the future; for now, Asajj takes note of the best places within the ship to hide and spy.

Then she sits back to watch the show.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, you know how I was planning to take a break from posting to write the rest of this fic, then only post it when it was complete?
> 
> ... yeah, that didn't really work out.
> 
> April was stressful as hell, and I didn't get a chance to work on this AU much; hopefully, with finals ending in... shit, like a week, yikes, when those are over I should be able to get back into the swing of writing things. But I decided it had been too long, and I wanted to do something for May 4th; so welcome back to the Jedi Shmi AU, and hopefully the next update won't take as long as this one did.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The pursuit of Grievous continues.

 

There is no sound in space.

That’s the most shocking thing about a space battle - going from quiet, the slight rumble of a shuttle, seeming peace - though every bump and every twist is, logically, a shockwave from an explosion or an enemy fighter. Every second, one more time where the shuttle could be shot down, could die barely knowing the battle outside would happen. And then a shudder, a thump, locking onto the other ship and rushing in through its airlock, and suddenly the sounds of battle echo, screams and explosions and blaster shots - but they could be in the next corridor or half the ship away, and there’s no way of knowing, only a hope that you chose the right direction to run in.

The rending of metal screams through the air as a door is forced open, its electronics popping and shrieking. Behind it, countless droids turn towards the sound - and are shot down, and cut down, from both ahead and behind.

For a few momets, then, silence - not quite, with the sounds of other battles rising and falling in the background - _quiet_ , at least, reigns in the corridor.

“A _simple resupply mission_ ,” Shmi says.

Obi-Wan sighs. “It’s not like we _planned_ this,” he says. “It just sort of… happened.”

“Why do I get the feeling that these things _just sort of happen_ more often than usual?” Shmi asks

Obi-Wan just grimaces.

“Sir,” says one of the 212th, jogging up to Obi-Wan. “The bridge is clear, and other than a few small holdouts, so is the rest of the ship. But one of those holdouts is by the escape pods’ bay, and there’s… reports of lightsabers.”

“Grievous?” Obi-Wan asks.

The trooper nods.

“Thank you, Waxer,” Obi-Wan says, then turns back to Shmi. “I’ll–”

“Go clean up the rest of your ship and manage the space battle while I handle the job that you and the rest of the Council have given me?” she interrupts.

Obi-Wan glares at her.

Shmi raises an eyebrow, the same way she did when she needed to handle a younger Anakin in one of his moods.

For all she knows, Obi-Wan might be able to face Grievous and survive, maybe even win; he is the best of all the Jedi at soresu, injured leg or no. There are some things he can no longer do, jumps and flips from ataru that he’s been forced to leave behind, but in turn his defense has become even more uncompromising. She doesn’t want anyone else to have to face Grievous - a point driven home after they’d just missed him on a battlefield where two Jedi had lost their lives - but if any other Jedi had to, Obi-Wan would be the one to do it.

This is her job, though, assigned by the Council that he is on, and he has another battle to fight.

“Fine,” Obi-Wan snaps. “Who should I coordinate with on your ship?”

Shmi doesn’t let it show how relieved she is that Obi-Wan has listened to reason. “Commander Lock and Major Rano are sharing command at the moment, with the Commander focusing on the overall battle and the Major handling defense and coordinating our away teams.”

“I’ll be in contact,” Obi-Wan says, turning to the clone who’d brought him the news - Waxer. “Waxer, will you take them to the pod bay?”

“Yes, sir,” Waxer says. “This way, General; Major.”

Shmi doesn’t need Waxer’s indication to know that Slick has walked up behind her; it’s always a comfort to have him at her back.

“Force be with you,” Obi-Wan calls as they jog away through the corridors of his ship.

“Pod bays are pretty well fortified, which would normally be good for us but… well, not so much now,” Waxer says, briefing them as they run. “There’s not more than a few squads of droids holed up in there, but it’s designed to hold. Reports of lightsabers were mostly from the start of the fight; Grievous could still be there, he could have gotten out some other way, but we know he hasn’t ejected yet; the ship’s computers are showing all pods here and functional, so far.”

“Any vents, leading in or out?” Shmi asks.

Waxer shakes his head. “None he could fit through.”

Shmi glances over at Slick; Slick glances back at her and nods once, sharply, then flicks on his comm unit.

“Rano,” he says. “Have some eyes on the _Negotiator_ ’s pod bay. Don’t fire until we give the go-ahead, but have a target on any pod that ejects.”

“Copy that,” Rano says, his voice clear through Shmi’s earpiece. “Don’t get yourselves killed.”

Two squads of the 212th are camped outside the pod bay’s doors, and their rear scouts wave Shmi and her squads through.

“We’ve seen Grievous, but he hasn’t been fighting much, just running out to block a few shots then getting back under cover,” one of the sergeants reports, glancing between Waxer and Shmi. “We reported it to Commander Cody, and he said it was probably a taunt, to try and get a Jedi down here to lure him out.”

Shmi grimaces. That does sound like Grievous’s style, and it would have worked, too, if she hadn’t been here. But it does change things. “Now we have to lure him out,” she says. “And the best way to do that would be to make him think that he has lured a Jedi in; but he’ll just run if he knows it’s me.”

“And that would be a horrible outcome,” Slick deadpans.

“All right, fine, then,” Shmi says, and steps out into the narrow entrance to the pod bay.

It’s not trivial, but it’s easy enough for her to deflect the few blaster shots that come her way; she doesn’t see Grievous, glancing through the area, but there’s a substantial amount of cover for him to be hiding behind.

“Grievous,” she calls, projecting her voice so that it echoes around the bay. The droids’ fire slows, then stops.

She can hear Grievous growl, low and angry; she’s been chasing him long enough now that he’s becoming familiar to her. She can see in her mind’s eye how his claws will be curling around his lightsabers, how his mask will tilt and his eyes will narrow. After Ileenium, while Rano was still recovering in the infirmary, they’d crossed blades once more and seen each other from across the battlefield twice; in the time since Rano’s recovered, they’ve seen each other once, Grievous fleeing from a battle that the Separatists had been winning, Jedi’s and clone’s blood both spilled. Countless times, Shmi has arrived to a battlefield or a base or an orbit around a planet to learn that they are just days, hours, minutes too late. She has chased him across countless systems, and as much as he is a mystery, so is he becoming familiar to her, a battle fought or not fought again and again.

For all that, Shmi thinks, she doesn’t even know what species he is.

“You've attacked my son’s fleet, invaded his master’s ship - and still, you won’t face me?” she continues, trying to prompt him either out or away.

Grievous snaps out words, cursing her in a language she doesn’t know. The clanking of his claws on metal echoes through the pod bay and there’s the hiss of a door closing.

“Hey!” a battledroid calls out, but it’s obscured by the hiss-roar of a launching pod.

Shmi steps back out of the doorway; a few moments later, the droids’ fire starts back up.

Waxer is looking between her and the pod bay, his head tilted to the side, clearly curious about why that had just worked.

But - Slick is glaring at his comm. “Rano, come _in_ ,” he growls.

“A pod just launched,” Rano says in her earpiece, his voice calm. “General, or Slick, do I have confirmation to fire?”

“ _Yes_ ,” Slick says. “Come _on_ –”

“I repeat,” Rano says, starting to sound a little nervous. “Do I have confirmation to fire? General?”

Shmi takes the comm from Slick. It’s still on, still recieving, but clearly something’s wrong. “Rano, do you copy?”

No reply.

“General Kenobi,” Waxer says into his own comm. “We need you to transmit a message to the bridge of the _Reckless_ to fire on that pod - yes, _now_ –”

“General,” Rano says, his voice urgent and worried, getting steadily more panicked. “I can’t fire on that pod without your confirm, can you hear me, I can’t–”

“We can hear you,” Shmi says. “Rano–”

There’s a small commotion in the background of the comms, one that isn’t clear through the comms, then Rano’s voice sounds clearly. “Yes, check for a problem with transmissions, something’s wrong–”

“General Skywalker,” calls one of the 212th - one of the sergeants, standing at a panel by the pod bay’s doors. “The pod is entering the planet’s atmo.”

Shmi lets out a quiet exhale. That means that any second now–

“The pod is out of our range,” Rano says quietly, still clear in her earpiece. “It sounds like something’s going wrong with our incoming transmissions, specifically the ones from the direction of the _Negotiator_.”

Slick swears, low and vicious in Mando’a; Shmi can only understand a portion of what he’s saying, but it still sounds anatomically improbable.

“We think we have a fix,” Rano continues. “It should be up in three - two–”

“What the _kriff_ was that,” Slick snarls.

“Evidently, we’re back,” Rano says dryly.

Shmi steps towards Slick and places a hand on his shoulder, both to calm him and to help him refocus; it clearly wasn’t Rano’s fault that the transmissions went down, not with how worried he sounded.

“We can send a ground team to the planet,” Waxer says. “But it won’t be safe to do that until we’ve won the battle up here.”

“And by that time, he’ll have called in more reinforcements, and we’ll have a ground battle to fight,” Slick says, gritting his teeth and holding his comm tightly. But he isn’t swearing at Rano, so that’s progress.

A ground battle is _not_ progress - clones under her command, and likely Anakin’s and Obi-Wan’s, fighting and dying, all the sorrow and pain that will cause, over what - an uninhabited planet, only useful as a rendezvous point? Is it even _worth_ pursuing Grievous there?

Slick can tell what she’s thinking, and sends her a warning glance; she meets his eyes squarely, not accepting it quite yet.

That is a _tactical_ question that she needs to answer. Is it worth pursuing Grievous right now, when they have to resupply the 212th and 501st, when there’s already repairs that need to get done?

Or - is it worth pursuing Grievous right now, when he has no certainty of backup, no base to hole up in, is maybe injured and alone on the planet below? When they have both the 212th and the 501st as backup if things go wrong?

“All right,” Shmi says. “Slick, tell the _Reckless_ that we may be having a ground battle. Have Captain Hex organize a few stealth teams and start a location analysis, but also–”

“Also more troops, in case an actual battle can’t be avoided,” Slick says nodding along. “Yes, sir.”

“General Kenobi’s going to want to know your plan,” Waxer says. “The space battle isn’t done yet, but it sounds like the tide is turning. I can take you to the bridge.”

Shmi glances around at the squads of the 212th stationed here, but they’re handling the droids in the pod bay. “Sergeant Tack, stay here as backup, but also to copy the pod’s launch information - forward it to the _Reckless_. Sergeant Fireday, with us.”

“Yes, sir,” both sergeants say.

“Good luck,” Tack says, more quietly, probably directed at Fireday.

Fireday grins. “Thanks,” he says. “We’ll need it.”

The unfortunate thing is, Shmi thinks, that that’s probably true.

 

* * *

 

 

There’s something that might be beautiful about a space battle, if not for the fact that it involved so many people dying; just like fireworks in front of the stars.

Though without the following _boom_ , the bone-shaking sound - it’s silent, all in space.

The bridge remains loud, though, filled with shouting transmissions and reports, frantic orders and whoops of victory.

“Grievous ran,” she reports when she gets near Obi-Wan.

He looks different, here - she can see it in the way his eyes narrow, the way he’s still half-turned towards the battle happening all around them, weighing possibility and strategy. Running through the corridors of his ship, slicing through battle-droids, he’d been wincing over his leg, his grin fierce and full of wild energy; here, the bridge of the ship is the eye of the storm, and he stands steady and strong, voice snapping out orders as he stands as firmly as a mountain.

Obi-Wan, Shmi thinks, always responsible, always watching - command has been good for him.

“All right,” he says, in reply to her or to someone else she’s not sure. “We’re breaking off the attack on that first cruiser and focusing on the second. Keep skimming along the first, and take shots when you have them, but as you circle around it keep going on a vector towards the second cruiser. Trick squadron, loop it around the narrow axis; be careful not to hit each other, and don’t be so consistent that they can predict where to aim, but keep a tight orbit. Let the first cruiser limp.”

“We’re picking up a transmission coming from the planet’s surface,” an officer calls out. “Should we block it?”

“No,” Obi-Wan says. “Let it through.”

Shmi stiffens a bit. “Obi-Wan–”

“Grievous will either be calling for a pickup or for reinforcements,” Obi-Wan says, turning fully to her and meeting her eyes. “If we don’t let it get through, we’ll have to chase him through kilometers of unmapped land he can hide and sneak around in, picking troopers off one by one. If he calls for a pickup, we can target that when it comes in, then ambush _him_ at his rendezvous point; if he calls for reinforcements, we’ll stop them from ever making planetfall, using this as an opportunity to destroy as much of the Separatist fleet as we can, which will be more manageable here than a ground campaign.”

She studies him for a moment; he is certain about this, with how settled he feels on the bridge of a star destroyer. Meeting his eyes, though, she can see that he’s trying to tell her that he’s not happy, either.

The 144th, Shmi’s legion, does not have the highest AWOL rate in the GAR; it has some clones go absent without leave, of course, because that’s just expected. Neither the 501st nor the 212th have very high AWOL rates, either.

The 212th, like the 144th and the 501st, has a relatively high KIA rate; after all, it’s always hard to tell exactly how many clones have been killed in action. They recover bodies when they can, of course.

Sometimes, it’s tricky to recover bodies, especially when there aren’t any bodies to be recovered - no dead ones, at least.

Obi-Wan may not _understand_ , not on the visceral level that she and Anakin do, but he knows, and he’s helping. He’s trying to do what’s right for the Jedi, and for the Republic, and for the clones too.

“All right,” she says.

Besides, he is her commanding officer, technically - which is another change. He’s always treated her like… well, like a mother; sometimes deferring to the authority of a Jedi Master and sometimes bowing to her experience but usually looking up to her and aspiring.

Now he looks at her straight and direct, leaning slightly on his injured leg, the weight of authority on his shoulders.

Obi-Wan has already turned away, though, listening intently to a report on the status of one of the Separatist cruisers before taking the few steps over to the holotable and activating it.

“Master Yoda, Master Windu,” he says as it flickers on and two blue-tinged Council members come into view. “General Grievous boarded the _Negotiator_ and did some damage before escaping in one of our pods to the planet below; he sent out a transmission, one that I think was calling for reinforcements. Master Skywalker - General Shmi, I suppose? - plans to go after him on the planet’s surface, leaving Anakin and I to handle whatever else shows up. Just in case, though, I seem to recall that General Secura and her fleet are nearby; reinforcements of our own would not go amiss.”

They just stare at him for a long moment.

“Why,” Mace says, “Is it always you and Skywalker that have the interesting problems?”

“Anakin would say he learned from the best,” Obi-Wan says, keeping his expression serious.

Shmi can hear Slick snicker, behind her; Yoda looks like he’s grinning.

Mace sighs. “All right. We’ll send Secura your way. Don’t do anything else _unwise_ or you’re the one who’s going to have to explain it to the Senate.” That said, he cuts the transmission.

In the background, the battle rages on.

“Anakin,” Obi-Wan says. “Did you catch all that?”

There’s a slight crackle - fighter comms are lower quality than personal ones - and Anakin’s voice comes through a speaker on the holotable. “Loud and clear,” he says. “And just when we were starting to get bored, too. You sure you want to leave that first cruiser limping?”

“Yes, wait until that backup of Grievous’s shows up; either they’ll try to rescue it, making them split their forces, or they’ll leave it alone and we’ll have to deal with it, but it’s already nearly dead in the sky,” he says.

“What’s the worst that could happen?” Anakin asks cheerfully. “I mean - _kriff!_ ”

“Language,” Shmi and Obi-Wan say in unison.

There’s a heart-stopping second of silence before Anakin’s voice crackles back on. “Buzz droids are the worst, for the record. Anyway. Hi, Mom!”

“Focus, Ani,” she says, though she can feel a smile creep across her face.

“I am focused,” he protests. “In fact, I am so focused that I can afford to give you an escort for when you’re shuttling back to the _Reckless_.”

“Only if you can spare it,” Shmi says - Obi-Wan has already turned back to managing the battle on his end, so it falls to her to be Anakin’s responsible adult.

“We can,” he says seriously. “Snips, relay our numbers to the _Negotiator_ \- yeah, just send a live update to their command table, may as well let Obi-Wan know what’s going on.”

Well. It sounds like maybe Anakin can be his own responsible adult.

“All right,” she says. “Fly fast and fly free, Ani.”

“Best of luck and Force be with you,” Anakin says.

For all that sound can’t move through a vaccuum, she can hear how the battle is going - the voices filtering through transmissions are less frantic and more satisfied, less urgent, calmer.

“We should get back to the _Reckless_ ,” Shmi says, turning to Slick, who looks like he’s been… commiserating with Commander Cody. Oh well.

Commander Cody salutes. “Yes, sir,” he says. “And just - be aware that if the Seppies’ reinforcements are targeting Grievous, it’s more likely than not that a couple of transports will get through.”

Shmi inclines her head. It’s far from unexpected, even with Obi-Wan’s assertion that he’d stop most of them in orbit; no blockade is absolute, and this isn’t even a full blockade. “Thank you, Commander.”

The jog back to their shuttle is short, for the distances sometimes involved in star destroyers.

“I told Sergeant Tack to stay here, keep working with the 212th,” Slick says. “Fireday and his squad’s with us, obviously–”

“Obviously,” Fireday repeats. “After that mess in the Ileenium system, we want another crack at Grievous, too.”

“We’re all doing our best,” Shmi says as she steps into the shuttle and picks up a spare comm unit. “Do we have a location?”

“A rough one,” says Rano, through her earpiece. “Welcome back, General, and please try not to lose your comm again.”

“It’s not as if she’s ever far from someone who does have one,” Slick points out.

“But then I have to talk to _you_ ,” Rano shoots back.

Shmi grins to herself. Rano has never been as meek as some of the clones, but he’s newly freer with his words; she’s not sure what changed, with that time he spent in the infirmary, but though he’s been spending the same amount of time eavesdropping on her, something is clearly different.

“We’ve got a fighter escort and are ready to launch,” their pilot calls back.

“Launch when ready,” Shmi calls.

From here to her ship - then from her ship to the planet below, and to once again face Grievous.

 

* * *

 

 

It’s a whirlwind of chaos, organizing everything that needs to be organized, which squads go to whom and when they switch from stealth to combat - Shmi is reminded of Obi-Wan the calm eye of the deadly storm.

She sees Rano only briefly, rests a hand on his shoulder and tells him it was no fault of his the transmissions went down.

He laughs at that, a quiet chuckle with a strange, bitter note to it that Shmi can’t quite figure out. “Thank you, General,” he says, which isn’t an _I know_ , but Shmi doesn’t have enough time. “May the Force be with you down there.”

They’ll need it. Slick is barking orders, organizing squads and companies, but Shmi can’t stay for that - she hurries onto a transport to find one of the stealth teams already there.

“General,” Sergeant Fireday greets her with a grin. “Four stealth teams are ready to launch.”

“We don’t know how much time we have,” Shmi says. “Launch.”

Fireday repeats the order into his comm and the shuttle rumbles beneath them, lifting off from the _Reckless_ and turning towards the planet below.

“General.” Slick’s voice is low in her ear. “Don’t get yourself killed. The Seppie backup’s arrived up here. We’ll let you know if anything makes it through.”

“I’ll do my best. You make sure to not get killed too,” she says, then clips her comm to her belt.

They land with a jolt, the shuttle doors opening and nearly blinding them with light; the planet has teal vegetation, flowing water, and a breathable atmosphere, but it hasn’t evolved more than simple animal life yet. A few insects, some small mammals - but they and Grievous are the only advanced living creatures on the planet.

“The _Negotiator_ ’s pod tracking suggests that it landed north of here, but he could have moved since then,” says one of the troopers - Silver. “But he can’t have gone too far, not without leaving a noticeable trail.”

Every stealth team knows how Grievous moves, now: claw marks in dirt and stone, branches and leaves slashed away, ceilings and upper levels as places to keep both eyes on.

“Spread out,” Fireday says. “Kore, Cat-Eyes, take the far regions; everyone else, stay a little closer in. Don’t let anything get past you, call out over comms if you see anything. Go–”

“ _Separatist transport, breaking atmo!_ ”

Fireday swears. “Go! Cover as much area as you can, but get back here before the droids hit ground, we can still try and find him–”

“Reinforcements are coming your way, General,” Slick says through the comms. “Ours as well as theirs.”

“What happened?” Shmi asks quietly, stepping back and letting the stealth squad do their jobs. “That seems a little too quick for them to have broken Obi-Wan’s line.”

Slick laughs in her ear, though not like Rano had laughed - this is a different tone entirely. “Remember that limping cruiser, the one that Kenobi said to leave?”

Shmi blinks, then turns and stares up at the sky, trying to spot it. “That ship has no way to survive re-entry.”

“That’s what we all thought, too,” Slick says. “But hey - they’re droids. Who says they _need_ to survive?”

She thinks that over for a second, then swears.

“Help is on its way,” Slick promises, before he hangs up with a quiet click.

The ship is visible now, orange-red with heat, falling through the atmosphere like a comet. It has stabilizers, a little bit of life left in its engines, so its impact won’t obliterate all life on the planet. No sentient - well, very _few_ sentient species would be able to survive a fall like that. But droids, able to take that kind of pressure, that kind of heat, able to deactivate and brace themselves for the impact–

It hits with a shockwave that Shmi can feel, a few kilometers to the north; near where Grievous’s pod had landed.

“Droids use sentient commanders,” Fireday observes. “And there’s no way any sentient on that ship lived.”

“They didn’t need to,” Shmi says grimly. “They’ve got a commander down here.”

Shuttles and transports streak down from the sky, heading closer to the impact site.

“Well,” Shmi says, and sighs. “Let’s go join them.”

With the stealth team returned, they pile into the shuttle and take off again.

Shmi doesn’t grit her teeth at the futility of their first try, the idea that she may have been able to do more had she stayed on the _Reckless_ until Grievous’s reinforcements had turned towards him; she lets that seep out of her, and knows that she did the best she could.

“Why _don’t_ we just retreat?” Buckle asks over the rumble of the shuttle. “I mean - I heard you talking about how we don’t want a ground battle here, and we have nothing to win, really.”

“We do have something to win,” Kore counters before Shmi can reply. “Grievous’s death - that’s worth a battle.”

Buckle nods. “That’s fair,” he says. “But we’ve had so much trouble going after him on battlefields before - well, I guess that’s why we tried stealth first. Okay.”

Just like the flight over to the _Negotiator_ , what seems like hours ago, they’re flying into a battlefield - but this time they’re not in space, and the sounds of lasers and explosions echo across the planet.

“Grievous spotted, west and north!”

“ _Go_ ,” Shmi shouts, and the transport veers to the side. “He’ll have a guard of droids, you know the drill; you take care of them, let me know if you have a shot and I’ll get clear.”

“Yes, sir,” the squad says together.

The shuttle door opens, but Shmi doesn’t let it blind her this time; she jumps out as it slows, falling the last few meters to the ground. To Grievous.

He attacks, growling, and she parries, ripostes - he’s getting more confident crossing blades with her, knowing that she won’t get killed if he misjudges a swing or two; for all she knows, while death isn’t permissible, maiming her might be perfectly allowed.

Best not to find out.

She attacks, he defends, then he attacks again, and switch, and again. Battle rages around them, the ground dirt and pebbles beneath their feet.

Makashi - she hasn’t used the vaapad yet, not in a true battle. Not outside of the training rooms late at night when she is truly alone. But she can feel the heat of it, feel the thrum of her blood in her veins, the energy of a battlefield yearning to break free.

Something tells her _not yet_.

She spins her lightsaber in a quick corkscrew, trying to disarm him, and he breaks away, backs up a few meters.

They both stand there a few moments, breathing heavily, before blaster-fire streaks towards Grievous.

His lightsabers spin into disks, deflecting the blasts but not in a defined direction; he glances to the side, where Fireday and Arasu both have their blasters aimed at him. Then he glances back towards Shmi.

“No–”

She barely has time to take a few steps forward before he turns and leaps towards the clones.

Arasu is beheaded, and a blade is shoved through Fireday’s torso; she feels the life leave them both. Grievous whirls, spinning on one leg, lashing out with his other - and catches a third clone in his foot-claw, lifts them up by the neck and gives them a little shake. He doesn’t crush their neck yet.

He doesn’t crush _Siolo’s_ neck, yet.

“Look how easily they all fall,” Grievous says, his voice rasping.

“ _Stop_ ,” she says, and Grievous turns to her, would be grinning if not for the mask, she’s sure.

He laughs, and with a creeping feeling up her spine she realizes it’s the same way Rano had laughed quietly before. It’s a type of laughter she recognizes now, though she hadn’t then - Grievous is following his orders, and Grievous is tired.

“Why should I?” he says, giving Siolo a little shake. “You pursue me, and is it not right that I am allowed to retaliate?”

Shmi is a Jedi Master. That much is certain; she has been a Jedi Master since the moment she was knighted, secure in her knowledge and secure in her self. It takes many steps to become a knight, and many more to become a master, but she has walked far in her life under many planets’ skies.

It takes many steps to become a master, and she has walked that far and then some, on the sands of Tatooine and the skylanes of Coruscant; as a slave her shoes fell apart and her feet bled from the harsh ground, and as a Jedi her boots were made of the finest synth-leather. She has walked, and walked farther, and always there have been people at her side.

Shmi had told Mace Windu, beneath the dawn skies of Ryloth, that she was a negotiator, that she may know lightsabers and the Force and more data-slicing than is strictly legal, but most of all she knows _people_.

That is still true here, beneath the skies of this nameless planet.

And Grievous, for all his scarring and all his enhancements, is a person.

“You are,” she says.

Grievous stills.

“Of course you are allowed to retaliate,” she continues. “But you should be able to retaliate against _me_. It’s my task to fight you, to bring you to justice if I can and stop you from hurting our people if I cannot; but either way, that is _my_ task, and I have accepted it. And yet you have not fought me.”

He lets out a low growl, barely even audible - annoyance, frustration, anger.

Fighting is important to him, Shmi thinks, trying to pull the pieces together. He hates having to run from me, having to abandon his morals. _Warrior culture_. Not the same as Mandalore… but not entirely different from Mandalore, either.

“I do not know who you are,” she says, because warrior cultures are not all alike, but many value straightforwardness. “I want to know. Warrior,” she says, a polite form of address to any - and Grievous stiffens even more than before, showing that she’s hit the mark. (Siolo still dangles from his grasping claws, quiet and still, trusting her to do the talking, trusting her to do what’s right, get him out of this.) “Warrior, you hate the Jedi; I would know why, and fight you honorably as is your due.”

She can hear Slick through her comm, making frustrated and furious noises but not speaking to her, not distracting her; he’s not stupid, he knows that this is a viable strategy. He knows they need intel, they need any advantage they can get, and this would be an advantage, whether she lives or dies in the process of learning it.

Grievous sighs, a rasping, rattling breath that’s almost more of a cough, and drops Siolo, tossing him off to the side. “You _Jedi_ ,” he spits, “Always claiming to know what’s best, always with your _points of view_ , always thinking that _you_ must be right. My people were _hunted_ , and I drove back the Huk - before they turned to the Jedi, to the Republic, and brought us to our knees for trying to save our people.”

“Ah,” Shmi says softly. “What is the name of your planet?”

He laughs, bitter. “And what will you do with it? This wrong has been righted - and not by any of _you_. Who are you now, _Jedi_ , to ask this?”

Shmi kneels, sitting back on the ground, a meditative posture - her lightsaber is set clearly on the ground in front of her, her eyes are kept fixed firmly on Grievous. A meditative posture; a preparation for combat.

“I am Shmi,” she says. “Skywalker, of Tatooine and of the path of the Jedi.”

Then she waits.

What was a battlefield is quiet, all around her; there are shouts in the distance, yells, blaster-fire, but here it is calm. A group of clones stands a distance away, including Siolo, wise enough to not interrupt; Grievous has two of his droids behind them, but like her troops they stand a distance away, not interfering, leaving it to the two generals.

The wind does not howl, but it makes the grasses rustle, gently brushing over a few flyaway strands of her hair; Grievous’s cape, tattered and torn, moves slightly in the breeze, the only hint of motion in his otherwise-still frame.

“I am Grievous,” he says finally. “The dreamer of the Kunbal, khagan of Kalee.”

Kalee - Shmi doesn’t know that planet, though it’s likely she can learn about it; if Jedi have taken any action there it will be in the archives. But the archives are not here, and Grievous is, and so is she.

“Khagan,” she says, and inclines her head - she knows the title of a leader when she hears one. “I would fight you, warrior to warrior, and have this endless chase be done.”

“Jedi,” Grievous says, and narrows his eyes. “You do not know what you ask.”

“I ask for truth,” she says. “If you will not fight me honorably, tell me why.”

Grievous laughs again, his hacking cough bitter as ever, mocking. “This is a war of secrets, that even I can see, and you ask for _truth_.”

“A truth for a truth,” she says. “You say the Jedi have wronged you. So: the truth of Kalee, to the Jedi and to the Senate, for an explanation.”

“As if that could ever be enough,” Grievous says, but she can tell he’s not so certain as that about denying her offer.

Well, he has no way of knowing that she’ll be looking for the truth anyways. If there was a wrong, it’s her duty to make it right in any way she can.

“Consider it,” she says, then presses a button on her comm. “Call the retreat; we have nothing more to gain here.” A ragged-looking droid transport shuttle has drawn up behind Grievous; not taking his eyes off of her, he steps backwards on to it, leaving the battlefield to the droids, the clones, and Shmi.

“ _Finally_ , sir,” Slick says in her ear, then begins relaying the order.

 

* * *

 

 

When Shmi sets foot back on the _Reckless_ , she feels more tired than she has in weeks.

Siolo is a comfort, a solid presence at her back talking on and on softly about - she’s not sure what, really, but he doesn’t seem to mind that she’s not focused on his words. The background noise is a reassurance, a fixed point in the galaxy so that she can let her mind wander.

She is sad, in mourning now and always for the clones that have died on her orders; she accepts that, and she accepts that she cannot move on, that she does not _want_ to move on. Shmi leaves that feeling inside her, and moves on to the next.

Fury - anger, at Grievous for attacking her troops, for being the cause of their deaths. At the Jedi, for she has no doubt that the situation, whatever it was, had somehow been mis-handled, to leave someone seeking vengeance to this degree. At herself, for not finding a way to pursue this before - she knows that there was no chance, no opportunity to find this information, and yet she cannot help think that there should have been some way.

That feeling, she sets aside. Rage has not helped her before, and it will not help her here.

Gladness that she has a lead to follow; guilt that she is happy when others are dead, another one to set aside. More guilt - that she is regretting these deaths even when she’s been told, again and again, that she has no choice but to let them fight.

Anger, that she has no choice, that they have no choice.. She leaves that anger be, lets it simmer, tight and controlled. One day, she will need to face whoever did this, and the vaapad does best with fuel.

A deep breath - then on to what she’s learned.

Grievous’s home planet. Kalee, wherever that is - and Kunbal, a place on it. Hints and clues to his history, his past, what made him who he is. If she finds out, if she makes known the truth, then he will owe her the truth in turn, and truth is a thing that has been sorely lacking in the past few months. If she finds out how he has come from the Khagan of Kalee to the droid general of the Separatists, if she finds out _why_ …

This is the kind of information, she knows, that can make or break a war.

And with a spy somewhere in the order, still evading her and Yoda and everyone else looking - any action they take may be diverted or twisted against them, if they spread the information too quickly or too slowly, too broadly or too narrowly. There are a thousand ways it could go wrong–

“General?”

Shmi blinks, then makes her eyes focus. “Commander Lock?”

It is Lock that stands in front of her, armored arms banded with green paint, the rest of the armor spotless white.

He clears his throat. “Major Slick’s in the hangars busy with logistics for the shuttles, and Major Rano is still on the bridge, cleaning up the tail end of the fallout from the battle up here. Both of them told me to stick with you.”

“Ah. Thank you,” Shmi says, even though she’d really rather have Slick or Rano with her. Or Luna, Siolo - but they need to go report in to medical, Siolo especially, and clean their armor, fix their weapons. It’s just - they’re not–

Shmi helps people heal. That’s what she does, that’s part of who she is - but here, now, is not a time when she has enough energy to be helping Lock. Lock is a good leader, fantastic at seeing the bigger picture, has an eye for spotting problems in the soldiers under his command, but Krell had done so much damage to his self-esteem, his sense of himself as a person. That’s what Shmi can help fix - that’s one place where Shmi is on steady ground. But it’s still taken _time_ , it’s still in progress, and Shmi has no energy.

A cup is pressed into her hand.

She blinks again, focuses again, realizes that she’s become lost in thought again - and that the cup in her hands is warm, with a sweet scent rising from it. She sips from it slowly, lets the warmth flow down to her belly, lets it diffuse through her veins. Breathes in the steam. Breathes.

This is familiar - she’s done this before, sat with a tired, sorrowful person and a cup of warm tea. She’s been the person giving the tea, sitting with Buckle or Neem or Lock–

Well, it seems that she’s not immune from the Jedi habit of underestimating people.

“Thank you,” she says again, quietly and sincerely.

“Of course, General,” Lock says, his tone unsure as it always has been, quiet as it always has been, but still standing there with her and a cup of tea.

“I suppose General Kenobi will want a report of the battle,” she says.

“Yes, sir,” Lock says. “I can ask the bridge to route the call through the nearest holotable.”

Instead of them having to walk all the way to the bridge. “Please do,” Shmi says.

Lock leads her through the corridors of their ship, silent but not awkwardly so, both of them simply preferring the quiet.

There’s a minor communications hub nearby with a functional holotable, so the walk is only a few minutes, but the quiet and relative isolation give Shmi a much-needed chance to relax. She breathes, as her and Lock’s steps echo through the corridors; in the background dozens of feet pound on distant corridors and shouts echo through the metal walls of the ship. Her ship, her people, alive and breathing.

Lock’s ship and Lock’s people, too, she thinks, and then they arrive at the comms room.

Obi-Wan flickers into view, blue from the projections. “Shmi, I’m so sorry,” is the first thing he says. “A ship commanded by sentients would never have been able to make that landing, so I didn’t consider the fact that a droid ship might. Whatever happened down there - it was my fault, and I take full blame.”

She breathes deep. “Obi-Wan, it’s all right,” she says. “Well. It’s not all right, but it’s done, and we did gain something. Something useful.” She doesn’t say what she learned, not now with Lock in the room. Nobody is eavesdropping on them, at least; of course, Rano couldn’t be, still handling cleanup on the bridge.

Obi-Wan’s eyes narrow. “Something interesting?” What he’s really asking is _something you can share with me?_

“Of course,” she says with a smile. “But you know how much I’ve missed seeing Ani, and I’d love to say hello to Ahsoka now that she’s his padawan. Would you mind if I came and visited for a few hours so we could all catch up?”

“Not at all,” he says. “Feel free to drop by as soon as you’re ready, but watch for remnants of droid fighters - I’m nearly certain we’ve got them all cleaned up, but still, there’s no harm in being too careful.”

“Some would say there was,” Shmi says, mostly just to tease him.

Obi-Wan grins lightly. “Qui-Gon did always say that I spent too much time on thoroughness,” he admits. “Either way, I look forward to your visit.”

“As do I,” she says. “I’ll be over soon.”

The holotable deactivates, its blue lights shutting off, darkening the room slightly.

Ever since Qui-Gon’s vanishing, Shmi thinks, Obi-Wan has been mourning him, quietly, solemnly. But today, he spoke of Qui-Gon and smiled. That doesn’t speak of moving on, not at this point in time - that speaks of _information_.

It seems she won’t be the only one sharing what she’s found.

“Good news, General?” Lock asks - he’s watching her, she realizes, and she’s smiling at nothing.

“Of course there is,” she says. “I’m seeing my son again - what’s not to be happy about? Well, many things, of course. But if you can’t be happy for the good things, then all that’s left is the bad, and that’s not a pleasant life to live.”

Lock looks like he’s turning that over in his mind. “The Jedi’s rules sound like they’d make that happen,” he says after a few seconds. “Is that what happened with General Krell?”

Possibly. “Probably,” Shmi says. “I didn’t know him before, so I can’t be certain. But… if Jedi try to rid themselves of all emotions - which isn’t even what our code calls for, though some may interpret it that way - then it’s easier to rid yourself of the good than the bad, so the bad sticks, and eventually overwhelms everything.”

“So it’s not that the bad is stronger,” Lock says quietly, maybe just to himself. “And it’s not that there’s more of it. It’s just… stickier.”

Both of them are quiet for a long moment, turning that over in their minds.

It makes sense, Shmi thinks - all the clones she’s met and talked with, enjoyed being around, and what sticks is their deaths.

“I have to admit, though,” she says after a few long moments, “That when I think of sticky things, I mostly think of the time when Ani was ten and somehow he and his clan somehow spilled six whole jars of honey all over themselves.”

Lock actually snickers a bit. “I… well, knowing cadets, that does sound like something that could happen. Imagining one as the other General Skywalker, though…” he puts his hand over his mouth. “I’m not sure I’ll be able to look at him without thinking of that.”

Shmi smiles, basking in memories. “Well. Would you be willing to accompany me to the _Negotiator?_ I’m probably supposed to have a squad or two with me as standard protocol or something, but so many are busy already, and I won’t disrupt ones who are resting–”

“Of course, General,” Lock says, and follows her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I _am_ going to finish this fic. I promised myself, and it really is going to be finished. Eventually. ugh.
> 
> Writing is going painfully slowly, but does still continue; summer has been busy, and when school starts up again it will undoubtedly get even more busy. Despite that, I am going to keep working on this series when I have the time. We're drawing closer and closer to the climax, which will itself probably be a bitch and a half to write, and I... may not actually know how it goes yet. uh. BUT we will get there! eventually.
> 
> Depending on how things go, I'd like to have the next chapter out before the end of summer, and ideally (in a perfect world, which is not likely) have this whole thing finished before the end of the year.
> 
> Until then, thank you all so much for putting up with the mess that my update schedule has become! I'm sorry I haven't had a chance to reply to all your lovely comments, since every time I see one I just get this ridiculous smile on my face. Y'all are great.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Secrets, lessons, and problems - Rex and Beru will have their hands full.

 

The shuttle makes a quiet thunk as it lands in the _Negotiator_ ’s docking bay, a sign that its shock absorbers might be failing; not unexpected, from the blackened burns across its sides, marring the paint job. It’s not in _bad_ shape, but it’s not shiny-new. Reasonable, for a random shuttle, but less reasonable for an official General-to-General visit. That, more than anything, shows how ragged the 144th are running.

Rex would feel bad for them, but honestly, there’s not anyone who _isn’t_ running ragged, this point in the war. Mostly, he just feels tired.

He makes his way over to the shuttle as its doors open and General Skywalker — the one who isn’t his — steps out. For once, the clone following her is Commander Lock, and not one of her two Majors.

“General,” he says, and salutes. “Welcome to the _Negotiator_.”

Her lips quirk a tiny bit, the same expression General Skywalker — _his_ General Skywalker — gets when something is amusing but he’s too tired to laugh. “Thank you, Captain Rex. Though I have to admit, I’m surprised it’s _only_ you.”

Rex relaxes his salute and lets himself grin a bit, too. “General Kenobi wanted to meet you here, but General Skywalker insisted they go to the medbay first for their post-battle check-ups. Neither of them are actually hurt,” he adds quickly, “But, well.”

General Shmi sighs fondly. “But Anakin worries,” she finishes for him. “Well, at least this way he can’t avoid his own check-up.”

“You would be surprised at how often he still manages to,” Rex says dryly.

“I raised him,” General Shmi murmurs. “I really wouldn’t.”

Rex snorts. “That’s fair, sir. Want me to lead you to the medbay?” He knows that the layouts of ships are standardized per model, but the _Reckless_ and the _Negotiator_ are different models — kriff, Rex himself can hardly find some rooms in the _Negotiator_ , it’s laid out so differently than the _Resolute_.

“Thank you,” she says, inclining her head. “That would be wonderful.”

They don’t make more small talk as he leads her through the ship, which Rex is grateful for. He’s exhausted from the stress of the battle, and no doubt General Shmi and Commander Lock are too.

The medbay, of course, is anything but quiet and restful; anyone who’s really hurt is being cared for in the infirmary behind the more-open main room, which is used for examinations and minor injuries. Of course, that means that the main room is also filled with complaining troopers, annoyed medics, and yelling Jedi.

Well, not all the Jedi are yelling; Rex’s tiniest Jedi is sitting on a bench just outside the medbay, listening in with a wicked grin on her face.

“What is it this time?” he asks Ahsoka.

“Anakin’s yelling at Obi-Wan for putting himself in danger and trying to clear out the ship all by himself,” Ahsoka says. “And Obi-Wan’s yelling at Anakin for… I think the main point was something about exploding hyperdrives and badly-timed corkscrews?”

Rex sighs. “The usual, then?”

“The usual,” she agrees.

General Shmi has a fond smile on her face. “If you give me a few minutes, I can try to defuse the worst of it.”

“They should calm themselves down in a bit,” Ahsoka says. “But if you want to try to speed them up, feel free — they haven’t even used any interesting insults this time.”

“Sometimes I worry we’re not raising you right,” Rex mutters.

Ahsoka grins at him, brightly and toothily. “You’re raising me _great_. Just the other day, I learned a new Mandalorian word for—”

“ _Language, Ahsoka!_ ” General Anakin calls from inside the medbay, then continues on his rant about Obi-Wan’s recklessness.

“He’s such a hypocrite,” Ahsoka grumbles.

General Shmi’s shoulders are shaking a bit, and her eyes are full of laughter. “As true as that is, and as amusing as it is, I do need to talk with him. With both of them.”

She strides into the medbay, closing the door behind her; the Generals’ argument becomes muffled, then stops abruptly.

Then, predictably, picks right back up again.

Rex catches Commander Lock eyeing the door nervously.

“She’ll be fine,” he reassures the Commander. “She can handle a little yelling, yeah?”

Lock’s expression doesn’t get any less worried. “She’s so tired, though. And she worries about everything, and she’ll worry about whatever they say…”

Rex shakes his head. “I know General Skywalker, and I know that she knows General Skywalker,” he says. “And she knows that what he needs right now is just to get all of this off of his chest. However loudly he’s doing it.”

“Anakin shows he cares by being loud,” Ahsoka adds. “And when he yells, it means he was worried, but it also means he’s relieved. When he’s done yelling, they’re going to apologize to each other and hug it out, and it’ll all be all right.”

“If you say so,” Lock says, but he doesn’t look fully convinced.

Ahsoka nods firmly, her seriousness sort of ruined by the way she’s still kicking her feet back and forth. “Shmi worries all the time, and so does Anakin, and they just show it in different ways. If she’s too tired to take his worrying, then he’ll notice that. Anakin notices a _lot_ more than he lets on, usually.”

“General Skywalker does, too,” Lock says, and visibly takes a deep breath. “Well… General Shmi, to avoid confusion.”

Rex knows that he’s unusual in calling his General by his first name; Cody calls his General _Kenobi_ , with or without the title depending on how exasperated he is at the time. There’s General Tachi, General Windu, General Secura… and out loud, Rex calls everyone their proper title, however annoyed Ahsoka is by _Commander Tano_. But in his head, they’re all too much like his brothers to not have proper names.

He is a little surprised that General Shmi isn’t General Shmi to the 144th, but thinking about it, it makes sense. With her taking a traumatized legion on so quickly, doing her best for them and trying to make them comfortable with their own choices, first name basis probably had been one stress too many. She knew not to push where they were too scared to yield; and who knew? Maybe _Skywalker_ , that name of freedom, had been in itself a comfort.

Whichever way, Lock looks like a brother — or a sibling, who knows — who’s started to take risks, started to step up, and who’s surprised at how well it’s going. Rex should know; taking control of the 501st hadn’t exactly been a walk through the training simulator, and for the first few months he’d almost expected the ground to fall out from under him any time he gave an order.

But look how that had turned out — so Rex gives Lock an encouraging nudge. “Yeah, well, General Shmi seems a lot less shouty than General Anakin, so I’d say you got the better of the two.”

Just then, of course, is when the medbay’s doors open, so all _three_ generals hear his comment.

“Oh, definitely,” General Anakin says immediately. “Better deal by _far_.”

General Shmi gives him a clearly-fake dissapointed look. “Did I hear someone _slandering_ my son?”

“Yep,” Ahsoka says, grinning. “You all done shouting at each other?”

“We are, finally,” General Obi-Wan says. “And now we’re ready to go shout at inanimate objects.”

Sharing information, Rex translates.

“Am I actually invited this time?” Ahsoka demands.

“Are you actually going to behave this time?” Anakin counters.

Ahsoka makes a face. “If I have to.”

The Jedi start making their way down the halls; Rex isn’t sure whether he wants to know what’s going on, or if he wants to talk to Lock, see what gossip the other clone has, but the decision is made for him.

“Come on, both of you,” General Obi-Wan calls back to them. “This will go better if everybody who needs to know this does.”

“And we need to know it?” Rex asks, since Lock looks a little too anxious to speak up.

“We don’t know that you don’t,” is the General’s reply.

Lock squares his shoulders. “Well,” he says quietly, just to Rex. “I do have some questions; so let’s see what this is about.”

 

* * *

 

 

The meeting room they hole up in is on the small side, but still fits all of them comfortably. And, of course, it has a functioning projector table — distinctly _not_ a holotable, since it’s incapable of transmitting out a signal, though it can pull from the ship’s databases.

General Anakin gives everyone a look once the door is shut, his serious face on. “One more time, we need to emphasize that we can’t let this information get to the wrong people.”

“And the biggest problem is that we don’t know who the wrong people are,” General Obi-Wan says, continuing from where Anakin left off. Now that they’re done yelling at each other, they’re working in cohesion, perfectly in sync.

“How do you know if you can trust us, then?” Lock asks.

“Because I know I can trust you,” General Shmi says quietly. “And I know that someone other than me in the 144th has to know all of this, just in case.”

Lock looks like he wants to ask something, but doesn’t.

Rex decides that it’s his turn to speak up, then. “You usually have one or both of your Majors with you, though,” he points out. “But you didn’t bring either of them.”

General Shmi nods. “I could have brought Slick or Rano, however busy they are right now,” she says. “But Slick would worry too much, and be too obvious about it; and Rano’s been spying on me for Dooku.”

“Wait, _what_?” General Anakin shakes his head. “But why would Dooku—”

“I think it’s his way of checking up on me,” General Shmi says, her tone amused, for all that the fact that she’s being spied on _really_ isn’t that amusing. “I’m not particularly happy that he hasn’t talked to me about it, but I understand the sentiment. But the point is that I don’t know how Rano is transmitting his information, and we can’t risk this information to an unknown level of security.”

Rex meets his General’s eyes and raises his eyebrows in a silent question; after a moment, General Anakin nods slightly, first tapping two of his fingers together then making a tiny gesture towards General Obi-Wan.

That’ll be a mess. Rex will have to coordinate with Cody trying to comb through both their legions to find out who any spies might be; but better to deal with a mess than to leak information, so Rex will take care of it. At least Ahsoka will help — she definitely caught that little exchange, though he doesn’t think that either of the other generals did.

“So,” General Obi-Wan says, and turns to Shmi. “You found something?”

General Shmi doesn’t smile, doesn’t grin, but something about her seems to say that she’s satisfied. “I talked with Grievous.”

General Anakin mutters something about recklessness; he’s such a hypocrite, Rex thinks fondly.

“His home planet is called Kalee,” General Shmi continues. “I’m not sure what the beings there are called, but he called himself the _khagan_ , sounding like it was a title deserving respect. So, a leader from a warrior culture, likely somewhere on the outer rim. He claims that the Jedi have wronged him and his people, and his words didn’t have the sound of lies to them.”

Rex can’t help but stare in shock, standing frozen for a few long moments; they all are, thinking over the possibilities that kind of information holds.

“That kind of research needs the Jedi Archives,” General Obi-Wan says flatly. “There’s no way the Council would approve a long-range access, not with how insecure it could be. You’d need to go to Coruscant for that.”

“And I would need to do it with an excuse,” General Shmi agrees. “Since we already know the archives have been tampered with. If there’s any chance these ones have remained intact… well, they won’t stay that way if the Sith hear that we’re interested in them.”

“So that’s why you’re telling us,” Rex says. “So _we_ can go to the Archives. And we even have an excuse, with Commander Tano still in training.”

General Anakin nods slowly, tapping his fingers on the projector table. “We’re due for a visit in not too long anyways, for some of Ahsoka's in-temple training. We could swing by the archives, get the info we need… and then what? What do we do with it, when we have the full details of the incident?”

They’re all quiet for a bit, then General Shmi sighs and looks away. “We take it to the Senate, and make it public.”

“No,” General Obi-Wan says instantly. “You’ve got to be joking — we are at _war_ , and if the Jedi are accused of some sort of incident, some sort of mishandling of a battlefield… if that gets out, even as a rumor, do you _know_ what will happen?”

“If we know something has gone wrong and cover it up, then what kind of peacekeepers are we?” General Shmi snaps, suddenly furious in a way that… well, in a way that Rex would expect from his own General Skywalker. “However much we may fight in these wars, we still do our best to keep peace, we still do our best to protect those who can’t protect themselves. We all do our best to help the whole galaxy, and _sometimes we do wrong_. If we can’t accept that, then the entire Order has become like Krell.”

Rex involuntarily glances towards Lock, who seems… almost comforted by his general’s anger, by the way she brings up the Jedi who’d treated Lock and all his legion like they were just things.

“They’re not,” Lock says, calmly contrasting Shmi’s fire and Obi-Wan’s ice. “The Jedi — the ones I’ve met, anyways — aren’t anything like Krell. But, General, it’s like you said earlier: the bad things stick. So General Kenobi is worried that something bad will stick to the Jedi, and they’ll become worse because of it. But the thing is, whatever it was already _happened_. It’s like the emotions again, because if you pretend it doesn’t exist, anything good in it will go away. And either way, the bad will stick.”

General Shmi lets out a little amused huff, and relaxes back into her seat, letting her anger ease.

General Obi-Wan lets his Councilor mask melt away — his fear, Rex realizes, now that Lock’s pointed it out.

General Anakin gives Lock a little thumbs-up.

“So, we can check that out next time we’re at the temple? Cool. Can we share _our_ news, now?” Ahsoka asks.

General Shmi glances at Obi-Wan with a raised eyebrow, and General Kenobi nods, a slightly-regretful expression on his face.

“Does this have anything to do with where Beru is?” General Shmi asks. “I thought she was staying with you.”

“Our data from Tatooine finally paid off,” General Anakin says quietly. “We found three things. Two possible bank numbers to look into, try and trace back to whoever owns them. And one transfer of goods — that’s the one Beru’s following up on.”

“Something to do with Qui-Gon,” General Shmi guesses immediately. “Let me guess. One humanoid, sold somewhere off-planet?”

General Anakin’s grin is answer enough.

“We still don’t have anything to suggest that he’s still alive,” General Obi-Wan cautions, but his heart isn’t in it, Rex can tell. “The training bond I had with him still feels… silent.”

“But that could be distance, or carbonite, any number of things,” General Anakin says dismissively. “The point is, we have a lead and Beru is following it.”

Sarad is following it _alone_ , which is less good news in Rex’s mind; sure she had taught them almost everything they knew, but he and his brothers could still have at least given her some backup. But no, she has to go on a top-secret mission all by herself — ugh, spywork is the worst.

"We're supposed to be her backup, in case things go wrong," General Anakin continues. "Not all of us, that would be too obvious, but a squad or two if she needs a hand. But if we're going to Coruscant to find out about Grievous…"

General Obi-Wan raises an eyebrow. "I didn't know you'd offered her a squad or two as backup," he murmurs. "That could have gone badly, Anakin—"

"Well, it didn't," his general says cheerfully. "And either way, Beru's backup is now officially your job. And Mom's."

Rex can see Lock grimace a bit; no wonder, if they're already stretched thin, but the 212th is far from shabby, and they'll be able to help out.

Of course, the ideal situation is that Sarad doesn't need her backup at all — but then, Rex knows how likely _that_ is.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

Beru makes her way through the market slowly, pausing here to look at a vendor’s food, glancing there over a display of holograms. Nobody in the market is convinced, of course, firstly because she’s mandalorian and secondly because everyone knows that this is a market for smugglers; she does it anyway, plays the nonchalant marketgoer, because it’s the norm, because it’s expected, because it feels comfortable. She doesn’t want to stand out, and by pretending to blend in, she stands out — but by standing out in that way, she blends in with all the other beings looking for illicit goods and illegal deals.

The Ring of Kafrene is part trading post, part mining facility, part smuggler’s den — pretty average, for a station free-floating in an asteroid field. What makes it unusual is the fact that it’s under Separatist control, while most trading posts have remained neutral, which is better for business even in the middle of a war. This one, though… well. Kafrene’s part of a mostly free-floating asteriod cluster, gravitationally tied to a star but far enough away that it’s not obvious; not locked together enough to accrete into a planet, but still distantly linked, and due to that combination of factors the Ring of Kafrene has been bouncing back between Hutt control and Sullustan control for the past few centuries, with the odd pirate era thrown in.

Overall, not a very friendly place for tatooinians, or mandalorians; but nobody can tell she’s from Tatooine, and nobody really wants to mess with the Mando’ade, so Beru continues on to her destination mostly unbothered.

Her destination is a small shop selling “curiousities” on the thirty-eighth level of the Ring, the shopkeeper — of indeterminate species — guarded by two bodyguards, a Devaronian and a Lasat.

“Well,” the shopkeeper says, and grins, an awkwardly toothy grin. “What can I do for you, my friend?”

Beru doesn’t grin, not that it would be visible beneath her helmet. Instead she keeps herself still, waiting, letting the moment stretch out, letting the shopkeeper wonder what she wants, whether she’s for some reason after _them_.

The shopkeeper clears their throat, and the bodyguards twitch; the Lasat steps forward. “We don’t want anyone who’s not here on business,” she says, drawing herself up to her full height, much taller than a human’s.

Beru doesn’t even bother looking at her. “Good,” she says quietly. “Because rest assured, _business_ is what I'm here for."

Ten minutes later, she walks back out of the shop with the information she needs.

It had been a typical drop-off, the shopkeeper had said, their head-tentacles quivering. Then some blathering about not being able to refuse contacts from the Hutts, which Beru had ignored; then, the key information.

A typical drop-off, but a strange pick-up. The buyer had been hooded, cloaked, unnoticeable, but the shopkeeper was of course the type who tried to notice unnoticeable things. With a few carefully pointed questions, and with what Beru had expected to find…

The comm on Beru's ship is secure, encrypted, and still probably not safe enough, but she sends an update to Anakin anyways.

"It wasn't her who picked him up here," she says — _her_ is Darth Vulsion. "Humanoid, likely male, no mask but his face was obscured. Didn't feel dangerous to the shopkeeper, but they mentioned an odd feeling — and the shop's guards don't remember him at all. Either her apprentice has gotten worse at disguises, or she has _another_ apprentice. Or…" Beru shrugs. "The other way around. Either way, the shopkeeper _and_ their guards noticed the ship. Fancy, modified, not even sure what the base model was, but might have been one of the Tempest builds. It's been too long for me to find what departure vector it took, but I'll start searching around for ship-modders who might recognize some of the details. Stay safe; Sarad out."

As she climbs back out of her ship, her helmet's HUD beeps, and Beru frowns. It's signalling that she has an incoming call — a local one. After a moment of thought, she picks it up, making sure to display her helmet-face and not her flesh-face.

Bo Katan's face — her flesh one — flickers into view. "Sarad. Sorry to track and call out of nowhere."

"No you're not," Beru says. She's amused, but depending on what Bo wants, that might not last.

"No I'm not," Bo agrees. "Pattern-recognition search for your helmet markings. This is the third station I've checked, and a few others are checking other places, so we'd be more likely to find you."

That wasn't too bad, then. It's not like Bo had actually stuck a tracker on her, just tried to find her using data-crunching methods like any mandalorian could. And if Bo was that desperate to find her, desperate enough that she had other mando'ade checking various places too—

"Jango did something, didn't he."

Bo… winces a bit. "You could say that."

Beru sighs. "There's a bar on level twenty-three that has decent private rooms. The Unnatural Axe. Meet me there, and we'll talk."

The Axe wasn't the best bar in the Ring of Kafrene, of course, but like she'd told Bo, it was decent, and discrete on top of that, which wasn't always a guarantee. Beru gets there before Bo does, of course, and bargains for one of their back rooms — a little more expensive than she likes, but if nothing else Beru knows how to haggle — then sets in to wait.

It's only a few minutes before Bo shows up, her armor gleaming in the bar's lighting; Beru messages her the room's number and lets her in, waits for her to take a seat. Waits for Bo Katan to start talking first.

Bo is trying to do the same thing, trying to wait, trying to make Beru give away what she knows, but it won't work; Beru is better at patience than she is. More than that, Bo is _tense_ , her blasters undrawn but fully loaded, her back almost painfully straight, her feet planted solidly on the floor.

"Jango said we've lost our way," Bo finally snaps out.

Beru waits a moment more. "We?"

Beneath her helmet, Bo is probably glaring at her. "We're — there's a group of warriors on Concordia, trying to do the right thing, trying to help Mandalore."

"So you've been waging war on civillians, and Jango called you out on it, and you're coming to me… _why?_ "

Bo Katan looks, for a moment, like she's going to snap, like she's going to draw her blaster and make it plain exactly how angry she is right now. But then she stops; Beru watches her clench her hands, release them, refocus.

Interesting.

And not at all like the Bo Katan that Sarad knows, the one with a hairpin trigger and anger as firey as her hair, who wasn't exactly cruel but wasn't nice, who has no _patience_.

This Bo Katan isn't stepping forward to defend her beliefs the moment she so much as thinks they're threatened. This Bo Katan is _uncertain_.

"He said some things about slavery," Bo says.

Bo Katan _may_ have a tripwire-sensitivity temper that Beru _may_ have taken advantage of once or twice, but that's not to say Beru doesn't have a temper of her own.

"Did he," Sarad says.

Bo twitches, like she can hear the ice in Beru's voice. "He said there's no honor in taking a being and not letting them fight."

"There isn't." Beru can see where this is going, though.

With the way Bo hesitates, won't quite look her in the eye as she thinks through her next sentence, Beru can see what _else_ Jango told them.

"But then isn't—" Bo catches herself.

"If there's no honor in not letting someone fight," Beru says quietly, though it takes a lot of effort to keep her voice calm, "Then why in the galaxy would there be honor in not letting someone _not_ fight?"

Bo Katan stares at her for a long moment.

Beru waits.

"That's not what—" Bo shakes her head. "It's not the same—" she stops again. "Is it?"

Beru keeps watching her, helmet steady, visor dark and unforgiving.

So, of course, that's when her comm beeps.

The message is all text, easy enough to pull up on her HUD, but it's broken the room's tension; if Beru were the sort to do things out of spite, she wouldn't look at it.

_Recalled to Coruscant for training stuff,_ it reads. _Forwarding to Mom & OW_.

Beru tries not to show how worried that makes her, how it feels like all the tension in the room is back, except focused on her idiot chosen-brother.

"Something wrong?" Bo Katan asks, always sharp.

"No," Beru lies.

"Something I can help with?"

" _No_."

"Not something that you could use some backup for? Actual backup, that isn't your Jedi friends?"

Beru pauses.

Bo Katan meets her eyes, as much as she can through both of their visors — then more clearly as she pulls off her helmet, signaling that she's being open, clear, trusting. "Look. Clearly you have answers I want, or — whatever. Whether or not you're willing to talk about that stuff, Jango's trying to make a point, and I want to make my understanding of that point as nonlethal as possible."

Which means staying out of the blast radius, which means getting Beru's advice. "How many others did you say were helping you?" Beru asks before she can talk herself out of it.

Bo Katan's grin is almost answer enough. "How many do you need?"

 

* * *

 

 

Beru lies.

She's gotten pretty good at it — that's actually also a lie. She's always been pretty good at lying, so Bo Katan and the others don't even blink when she tells them how she's trying to track down remnants of a Hutt network, one that might feed into the Separatist senate, or maybe the Republic senate, or maybe both.

It's plausible enough, really; has enough elements of truth that it looks close to what she's doing, enough that nobody will go to the wrong people, thinking they're uninvolved. Staying below the radar of both governments, and the Hutts to boot, means that they'll be careful with information.

Hopefully.

"The shipment I was tracking had a chance to lead me to the source, but the trail went cold," she tells the assembled mandalorians. "I do have a new plan, but it's… risky."

Bo Katan shrugs. "It's not fun without a little bit of spice."

Beru raises an eyebrow. "The plan involves breaking into one of the Bando Gora strongholds."

The room goes silent.

Up until a few years ago, the Bando Gora were dangerous, a gang not to be crossed, but nothing out of the ordinary. That changed, somehow; Beru can guess what happened, but there's a fair chance that none of the others have a clue. Sith involvement is hard to prove and harder to track.

"What do the Bando Gora have to do with anything?" One of Bo Katan's friends, a twi'lek with red armor two shades darker than her skin, is the first to speak up.

Jorad rolls his eyes. Beru really hadn't been expecting to see him in the group of mandalorians that showed up when Bo Katan called, but here he is. "Everyone knows they're dealing with the Hutts, and we've all seen the kind of blackmail they pull on anyone high-up that gets addicted. Bets are they've got the most complete list of everyone in both Senates who answers to someone they shouldn't. Right?"

"Right," Beru agrees. "I've got reasonable intel that puts a sattelite base of theirs down on Utapau. We raid it, pull what we can from their network — that means everything, since it may be in code or metaphor on top of the encryption—"

"Are you _crazy_?" another of Bo's tagalongs interrupts, a human or humanoid who hasn't taken their armor off. "Raid the _Bando Gora?_ Some of their drugs are airborne, can even get through beskar'gam, there's no _way_ we could get out of there in one piece."

Beru pauses for a moment, staring them down, waiting for them to start looking around for support.

"Am I crazy?" she asks. "I'm _mandalorian_. Yes, they've got some dangerous drugs; yes, we may not all get out of there. No, that's not enough to stop me from trying. I'd ask you to leave, but unfortunately we need to keep this plan quiet, so please sit down and shut up."

Bo Katan snorts and walks over to stand by Beru. "Mandalorian to the bone. But those airborne compounds are a concern — they could put us all down in a matter of minutes."

Beru dips her head in acknowledgement. "Two options — no, three. One, we could experiment, try grabbing new filtration systems for our beskar. Kriff, we could even just go in fully spaceproofed, air tanks and all; might cut down on maneuverability, but we'd have our own air supply, just in case. Two, as we hit them, we could each steal one of their masks."

The twi'lek from before nods slowly. "They can drug the air without hurting themselves," she reasons slowly, "So they've got to have something against it. Filters in their masks?"

"That's the problem with option two," Beru acknowledges, "Which is that it may not be filters, they may have antidotes or something else already in their systems. So. Option three. We go in completely unprepared and hope that we get lucky."

Jorad glances around the room, seeing what people think of that idea. "I think everyone's on board with option one."

"Good," Beru says. "Whoever's coming, with me to get ready; whoever's not… get comfortable, we should be done in a few days."

There are a few groans at that, but everyone understands the protocol; you can't have mission plans leaking, so anyone who's heard them has to stay isolated until the mission is over.

A little over half of Bo's group decides to join her, giving them fourteen warriors all told; less than she'd have liked, but more than she'd expected.

The flight to Utapau is a few hours long, in what looks like a repurposed Republic space-to-ground transport that Beru decides to not ask questions about. It's big enough to fit all of them in reasonable comfort, but not big enough for them to avoid listening in on each others' conversations.

She learns that the twi'lek in red armor is called Nad'aai, and that Bo Katan has gotten much better at sabacc since the last time Beru played her, and that for some reason this particular group of mandalorians doesn't really get the concept of _agency_.

"Look," she says, already fed up after twenty straight minutes of argument. "If people don't want to fight, then they _shouldn't have to fight_. I don't get why this is such a hard concept to grasp."

Jorad throws up his arms in frustration. "But if they can't fight, how can they really defend their beliefs? How can they truly have a voice in the galaxy?"

"There's more than one way of fighting."

"I'm talking about _combat_ , not just sitting around and blathering all day—"

Beru narrows her eyes. "So what are we doing right now?"

"Arguing," Nad'aai offers, and Jorad nods.

Bo Katan is smarter than that; she stays quiet, watching from the sidelines.

"Well, then," Beru says, and grins. Bares her teeth, really. "Here we are, having a disagreement. And… trying to settle it with words. If you say that this isn't a form of fighting — do you want to do it the traditional way, instead?"

Jorad doesn't reply.

Beru leans forward. Here she is, the leader of a raid on some of the most feared drug lords in the galaxy, daughter of stone and storms. Here she is, trained by Jango Fett, hundreds of thousands of credits to her name from bounties that she's brought in. The ship's dim internal lighting shines on her helmet, pale yellow, pale orange, dark blue lines, and burning, deadly white twin suns. "Do you?"

"No," Jorad says, and looks away.

Beru gazes around the ship full of silent mandalorians, whether they meet her eyes or not. "So," she asks softly. "Who wins?"

"You do," Nad'aai says, staring at her with wide eyes.

"And how did I win?" Beru leans back and waits for an answer that she likes.

"Intimidation?"

"He knew the likely outcome of an _actual_ fight—"

"You didn't want to fight," Bo Katan says.

Beru nods. "There we go. I didn't _want_ to fight. And if somebody really, _really_ doesn't want to fight, what are they willing to do to stop an argument from becoming a fight?"

"Anything," says Bo Katan.

"There you have it," Beru says. "Does that make sense to everyone?"

There are nods all around the ship, as the various mandalorians turn that concept over in their minds. She can tell that Nad'aai understands, and is troubled by the idea — not a surprise, since as a twi'lek she knows the risks she faces. Maybe she's left someone behind, maybe she's done something else she regrets, but either way she's probably starting to understand what Beru's next point will be. A human with swirled green and blue armor has their arms crossed, but isn't looking away yet, at least. A rodian with his armor done up all in different shades of yellow looks tense, his eyes darting around the room to see what the others think. Most, though… most are paying attention. Including Bo Katan.

"So now, consider this." She has their attention; more than that, she has their belief. They'll listen to what she says, now, and for once they may even understand it. "If Jorad had said _yes, I want to fight_. When would we have fought?"

"Not now, obviously," Jorad says, still not quite meeting her eyes. "Not right before this raid."

"Of course not," Beru agrees. "But when? After?"

"Probably—"

"So we'd be going into this raid not quite trusting each others' judgement?"

Jorad inhales, about to deny it, then stops.

"So really," Beru says softly, "It's for the best that I'm very good at winning… arguments."

The rest of the flight is quiet.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> FOUR DAYS TO TLJ
> 
> So... it's been a while. It's been almost exactly one semester. This is no coincidence; this semester kicked my ass. I literally wrote an entire chapter of this over the past week, because I finally have a break from the mountains of nonsense math I've been having to work through.
> 
> I'm not going to promise another chapter before the end of the month, because we're swiftly approaching the climax and I want to make sure it all really flows; however, I am going to try writing another New Year's oneshot, like I did last year, so keep an eye out for that.
> 
> Thank you so much to all the people who have commented/reviewed - even though I haven't been replying to most of them, every single comment I get makes me so, so happy, and so amazed that people still actually like this. Even if I don't reply to them, I read every single one. All of you are _fantastic_.
> 
> Happy Hannukah!


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Makashi is the form of contention, elegant and focused, for outmaneuvering opponents. Vaapad is more than a fighting style: it is a state of mind, where the practitioner accepts the fury of their opponent in order to defeat them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to eeddis for beta'ing this chapter!

  

Shmi looks at the blue figure floating over the holotable.

The figure looks back, her expression the picture of innocence.

"You _what_ ," Shmi says.

Beru almost looks a little guilty. Almost. "It was only a small Bando Gora base. And I had backup. And we did mostly get out safely."

Shmi takes a deep breath, then lets it out slowly, massaging the bridge of her nose to try and relieve stress. " _Mostly_ safely?"

"Two people got poisoned, but they'll be fine with a week or two of bacta," Beru reports almost cheerfully. "Another two got drugged, and they'll need a bit of help managing withdrawal symptoms, but we're on top of that. And Bo — someone else may have gotten a little bit stabbed, but she'll be fine."

"And for that impressive list of injuries, you got…" Shmi lets the sentence trail off, waiting for Beru's answer.

Now Beru just looks smug. "The entire local database."

Shmi glares at Beru.

"You're just upset because you know that my raid was justified," Beru says.

"I," Shmi says, "am upset because I don't know what I'd say to your mother, if you hadn't come back safely. But yes. Your raid was justified, and if that database contains information that we can use…"

Beru winces when Shmi brings up Kelin's reaction. "I am being careful, I promise."

Shmi sighs. "I know you are. But I would like some advance warning, next time. What if you'd just vanished?"

Beru nods, looking a little abashed, at least. "I'll find a way to let you know. And what we found in this base wasn't even necessarily relevant…" Beru pauses, likely for dramatic effect. "Except maybe the medical records."

"Medical records?" Did she mean—

"We're still decoding most of it, but there are records in here of their drug trials, the effects they've noted, the chemical compounds, maybe even antidotes. They've got withdrawal symptoms, incubation periods, everything. I'll forward it to you in a bit; it's a big enough download that it might take a while, but it's worth it." Beru grins, then her grin fades.

"What else?" Shmi asks; with that expression on Beru's face, there has to be something else.

"A few of their archived transmissions." Beru shrugs. "Some from Vulsion, of course; we're working on decrypting the audio, but I'm guessing it's just routine. And some of… someone else. Humanoid, probably male, cloaked and hooded."

Shmi has read Beru's previous reports; this being is probably the same one who she'd tracked to the Ring of Kafrene. "But surely the Bando Gora get many transmissions from disguised customers," she points out.

Beru takes a deep breath. "Disguised customers with what I'm pretty sure was a lightsaber hilt on their belt?"

The hairs on the back of Shmi's neck stand up. "No," she says. "Be careful."

"I will be," Beru says. "And besides, I've got backup now; real non-Jedi backup who know how to be subtle."

"Be careful of them, too," Shmi says, and Beru grins sharply.

Shmi doesn't ask anything more about Beru's backup, because for all that she may sometimes make reckless choices about raiding various drug lords' bases, Beru is an adult, and a bounty hunter in her own right. Shmi may worry, but she trusts Beru's judgement.

"Data dump incoming," Beru says, and ends the call.

Shmi watches it download. It's not going to go unnoticed, not by the Sith or by the Jedi Council, who (apart from Obi-Wan) still haven't been informed about Beru's investigation, so she'd better come up with some excuse for how she's getting all this information. And it can't be too far from the truth, or the Sith will notice; if they know who attacked the Bando Gora, but then Shmi tells the Jedi that she _doesn't_ know, or that it was someone else, they'll realize she has something to hide. If they realize she has something to hide, they'll start asking questions, poking into everything, starting their own investigations — and she's friends with a majority of the Council, very close with some of them, but if they start tracking down the Sith…

Very few of the members of the Council are subtle enough to find even the hints that Shmi has started to; she doubts that any of them are subtle enough to survive finding those hints.

The holotable beeps, signalling that the data dump has finished downloading; Shmi opens a file at random and skims over it, then another and another. A description of the chemical composition of a knockout gas and its effects on varying species. Notes on how bacta treatment affected varying recovery times. Symptoms for one of the more addictive drugs they produced.

"Enough," she murmurs to herself, out loud so that it will help her focus back on the present. This war has put her so far off balance in so many different ways… but simply sitting down and _hoping_ for peace will accomplish nothing, so she has to stand up and face the day, no matter how many unbalancing atrocities it brings.

Maybe the Jedi Council won't pay any particular attention to the data-dump. Of course, if she wants to actually use the information, she'll have to show it to them.

The Force nudges her slightly, a breath of fresh air and a hint of a memory — she isn't alone.

It's the work of only a few minutes to download all of Beru's findings onto a datachip — two datachips, just in case, both encrypted. One will go to Obi-Wan, who can give it to the council without having to explain where it came from; the other will be hidden, as a backup copy in case something goes wrong.

"General?"

Shmi looks up. It's Rano, surprisingly; she'd assumed he would just continue watching silently. "Yes?"

"Are you…" he hesitates. "You look concerned."

She can't help but smile a bit. "Thank you. I'm fine, though; it's just… well, the stress of war, as always."

Rano looks dubious. "Yes, sir. But is there something I can help with? Or Slick, or Lock… any of us, sir. You don't have to do… whatever this is… alone."

Coming so soon after the Force had reminded her of just that… Shmi can't say yes, can't tell any of them all of her worries. She can tell Lock about the search for Qui-Gon, tell Slick what needs to be done with Grievous… but this?

"What would you do," she says, leaning back on the holotable with a sigh, "If you had information that the enemy didn't want you to have? If you knew they couldn't go after you directly, but that if you spread the information, they'd kill whoever else knew it. But if you didn't spread the information, the war could be lost."

"Depends on the kind of information." Rano's eyes don't even flicker to the datachips in her hand, though she can tell he's curious. "If you can't spread it around, use it directly yourself to end the war. If it's not that kind of information…" he thinks for a moment, but not a long one. "If too many people know something, they can't all be silenced. Or — is the danger a specific piece of information, or information in general?"

Shmi sighs again. "Hypothetically speaking, you understand — both, of course. Anything else would just be too easy. But it's clear enough that we're getting some sort of information — I don't expect that to be able to stay hidden for long." So many possibilities. If a spy has noticed the incoming data dump, or if they've thought to check up on what Beru is doing, or if they've caught on to Padmé's research or any of the other thousand little things that could give it away—

Rano is quiet for a long, long moment, long enough that Shmi almost thinks he's given up answering. She can feel his frustration, not visible at all on his face but clear in the Force, a tight knot in his chest going around and around in circles.

"You could try using it as bait," he offers finally, clearly not pleased with his own suggestion. "You think — sir, you know I've been reporting to General Dooku. And with my experience, with the type of things we've run into, I have to think there are other spies somewhere in this legion."

"Of course," Shmi says, feeling tired down to her bones. "Let on to a small number of suspects that I have information — if I had any, of course, given that this is all hypothetical — they pass it on, we ferret out who it is."

"Yes, sir," Rano says.

"A definite possibility, I suppose." She's not going to do it, she knows already. With stakes this high… finding a couple of spies out of thousands of troopers in her legion is low priority, compared to the risk that all these secrets carry. But it's a good concept, one that she should keep in mind. "Thank you, Rano."

"Glad to help, sir," Rano says, his eyes still not straying towards the data-chips, so full of risk, that Shmi holds in her hand.

 

* * *

 

 There's no word on Grievous, not since he fled their last battle — well, no word that Shmi's been able to follow up on conclusively. As always, they'll just have to wait for him to reveal himself, whenever that may be, wherever that may be.

But in the meantime the cogs of war keep turning, and Shmi and the 144th are sent where they are needed.

The planet Quell is under siege — this time, by Republic forces. They can't land, but they can make sure that the Separatists don't land, either. Shmi doesn't like the idea of basically cutting off an entire planet from outside sources, but it is war, and it's not like they'll starve; Quell has decent infrastructure, certainly enough to survive on its own. Perhaps this is for the best, really. A siege, after all, means that ideally it'll be a long time before any actual combat.

Aayla — General Secura, rather — smiles when she sees Shmi, looking only a little more blue than she usually does in the hologram's display. "Has our relief arrived? Can we finally do something other than sit up here playing illicit drinking games?" It's a joke, of course — they both know their orders.

"Why?" Shmi asks with a faint smile of her own. "Do _you_ want to be the one to respond when they find Grievous's trail again?"

Aayla shudders. "No offense, Shmi? But I'll stick to the illicit drinking games."

"I still can't decide whether Vos taught you badly or taught you well," Shmi says, then focuses on her actual business here. "It'll take a while to transfer your supplies over, since we've got a full restock for you; probably a couple of days."

"After that, do you have orders to stay here for a while, or are you off to your next destination?"

Shmi tilts her head to the side, a touch confused. "Off to my next destination, unless something—" Grievous, that is, "—happens. Once you've got what you need, I'll be trying to start negotiations with Bothawui."

Aayla frowns a bit, barely visible through the hologram. "All right. While all the supplies are being transferred, then, why don't you come over to my flagship? It's been too long since I've had a decent spar, and I don't want to get out of practice."

It's a lie, but not an unbelievable one; Shmi agrees and they discuss logistic matters for a bit. The whole time, she's thinking about Aayla's suggestion they spar, and how Shmi had known immediately that it… wasn't even a true lie, really, but the Force was clear that it wasn't Aayla's true reason for wanting to talk to Shmi.

Slick accompanies her to Aayla's flagship, but she persuades him that instead of watching the Jedi spar, he should check in with the commander of the 327th. He gives her a _look_ , and she gives him one right back; yes she's off to discuss secret Jedi matters, yes she'll tell him if it's important, and _no_ she's not going to get into trouble in the middle of a star destroyer, accompanied by another Jedi.

… Again. It's highly unlikely that it would happen twice.

Either way, Slick leaves her and Aayla alone, and they make their way to the training salle in silence.

It's empty, aside from the two Jedi, with all the clones helping out with the supplies transfer. Shmi begins stretching, readying herself both physically and mentally for whatever Aayla may want to talk about.

"Best of three?" Aayla asks.

"All right," Shmi says, unbending with a sigh. "Although I should warn you, I'm not in the best shape; this may be a very, very quick fight."

Aayla flashes a grin. "Well, you never know what the Force may bring."

Like Anakin, Aayla uses a combination of forms IV and V; unlike Anakin, Aayla focuses more on ataru with its jumps and arials, and her form V is the shien variant rather than djem so. Overall, it makes her a very, very good duellist; while Shmi's makashi trumps many of the other forms, in the past Aayla has found the right combination of overwhelming strength and precision to overwhelm her quickly. Shmi has no doubts that this spar will be over quickly.

It is.

"Well," Aayla says, looking up from the floor, her lightsaber several meters away; Shmi's lightsaber is held steadily above her neck. "You were right about it being quick, at least."

"It seems like you've been getting rustier than I have, at least," Shmi says, though she knows — that's not really it.

Aayla looks like she knows, too, rolling to her feet as Shmi deactivates her lightsaber and raising her brow. "And you have been training for Grievous, of course. But you know—"

"Second bout?" Shmi interrupts. It's an obvious distraction, but Aayla permits it; when Shmi again wins soundly, she wants to accuse Aayla of holding back for some reason. But she can tell that Aayla has been fighting as well as Shmi's ever seen her spar.

"I'm going to try something different, this time," Aayla says before they begin their third round. "I think you'll recognize it."

Shmi narrows her eyes, but doesn't ask why; she'll find that out soon enough.

Their third fight — their third fight is _exhilarating_. The first two rounds had been barely warm-ups, compared to this; somehow Aayla _had_ been holding back, and now she is as swift and deadly as lightning, all grace and fury—

Shmi stumbles, steps back, as she realizes what form Aayla is using, and lets herself be disarmed; Aayla's lightsaber hums a bare inch away from her chest, the both of them panting heavily and carefully frozen in place.

"Well," Aayla says. "You still won the other two."

"I didn't know you knew the vaapad."

Aayla shrugs, not quite looking her in the eye. "I know. I don't… use it often, really. It's not comfortable. But…" she sighs, then sits cross-legged on the floor; Shmi mirrors her. "I don't know if you remember — when I was a padawan, Master Quinlan and I got captured, on a mission, and our enemies wanted us out of the way but not dead. We had our memories erased for a while."

"I do remember," Shmi says quietly. "I'm sorry I wasn't able to help more, in the aftermath—"

Aayla shakes her head, one sharp _no_. "You weren't even in-Temple when we returned; you had your own missions to deal with. I'm just telling you this for context, so you understand the timeline of what happened."

Shmi nods, and waits for Aayla to continue.

"So. We were betrayed, we were captured, we had all our memories erased. Master Quinlan was able to remember enough to call for help and rescue me, and we both returned to the Temple and began to recover." Aayla takes a deep breath, in and out. "It was a relatively short recovery, for the bulk of it." Her hands are still and calm in her lap, but her lekku twitch, a sign of her… not quite discomfort, but her memory. "The memories returned all at once, like a star being born; a few weeks to get back into fighting shape, and… well. I could fight, I could use the Force, I could speak diplomatically, but I was far from true recovery. Both Master Quinlan and I. We talked about it, when we felt like we could, which wasn't often. Sometime, somehow — he went on a solo mission, once, and he'd learned the beginning of the vaapad."

Shmi frowns. If she knows Quinlan, she knows that this would not be a good form for him.

Aayla sees her expression and nods. "That's how Master Windu felt, too, when he found out; but Master Quinlan has a… a different type, I suppose, of anger than I do. Because that's what it was, that's where I still had more recovery to do — I felt so angry, all the time, pouring out of me even when I was calm. Fury at what had been done to me, rage that they'd dared to do it to anyone — and fear, that I would become out of control, unable to handle myself, just as lost as I'd been without my memories. It was paralyzing me, stopping me from doing almost anything. If I did anything, would that be the thing that put me over the edge?"

"I'm sorry," Shmi says again, though she knows that this is all long in the past.

"Thank you. I'm not sure if it was Master Quinlan who asked Master Windu, or the other way around, but somehow they agreed — learning the vaapad would help." Aayla took a deep breath and let it out slowly, her lekku stilling. "It did. Having an outlet for my anger, having a way to channel it and control it… perhaps I would never need to use the vaapad in true combat; I never have yet. But I know that I will not be overwhelmed by this anger that I still feel the remnants of, and so I am no longer frozen by that fear."

Shmi says nothing.

"Shmi." Aayla summons Shmi's discarded lightsaber, setting it between them. "Master Windu taught both of us the vaapad for a reason. He taught me for the sake of myself, to use it in my own internal battles. I think we both know that he taught you for a different reason."

Shmi takes up her lightsaber, holding its weight in her hand. "I know. But however much I may hesitate…" she pauses, then shakes her head. "Before anything else, I'm still me — I won't fight if I can negotiate. If I see somebody in pain, in fear, in anger, how can I strike them down before I've tried to help them?"

"And if they refuse your help?" Aayla's eyes are serious, meeting Shmi's calmly.

Shmi holds up her lightsaber. "I won't stand idly by while they hurt others, that's for certain."

Aayla smiles, slowly. "Well, that's all we can offer, isn't it? Good." She stands swiftly. "Let's practice some more, then; you need to learn how to use the vaapad against a real person, not just a simulator."

Of course she does — Shmi sighs, gets up, and holds her lightsaber ready to defend and to attack.

 

* * *

 

 

When Shmi gets back to the _Reckless_ , she's exhausted and sore — but the good kind of exhausted and sore, her body pushed to its limit but not beyond. The vaapad is much clearer in her mind and her muscles, which is… not necessarily a _good_ thing, but a necessary thing.

She's not ready to go rest quite yet, though; while the ship does mostly run itself, the troops running it are more comfortable when she comes and stands on the bridge for a little while each day, even when they're not in combat.

That's where Slick finds her an hour later, his datapad full not only of lists of supplies transferred but also lists of clones, contacts in the 327th who are coordinating efforts to hide away those of their brothers who don't want to fight.

"It's decent," Slick says, going over the list with her. "Not great, but not the worst; Bly's a good commander, seems friendly with General Secura, and both of them mostly just focus on the war. One of the captains — Pines — says that they'd be all right if either of them noticed a few deserters here and there, but they'd probably object if a large number of brothers tried to leave."

Shmi grimaces — she can definitely see Aayla being like that. A fantastic Jedi, a good General, competent and focused on the goal, compassionate in the small scale but… "She'd be worried about how to win the war, if large numbers of troopers tried to get out."

"She wouldn't exactly be wrong," Slick points out. "That's why a lot of brothers are staying, you know — the more of us leave, the harder it'll be for the ones who haven't left yet, the harder it'll be to win the war."

"And if we want to live in the galaxy, there has to still be a galaxy left to live in." Lock salutes her, but casually, not waiting for her to tell him to be at ease before relaxing. "General. It's not urgent, but you should know: we got a report that Grievous turned up on Kashyyyk. The Republic troops there were barely holding on and didn't manage to report it in time; he was gone for five days before word managed to get out."

Slick swears. "There'll be no point in going there, then — he's gotten too good at erasing his trail, especially with that kind of time."

"But at least we know he's active again," Shmi says, feeling tired. This time it's not the good type of tired. "All right. If that's the case, I should go get some rest." No knowing when they'll be called out, after all.

"We can handle the rest of the transfer," Lock says, nodding. "Rano's still out on the 327th's flagship with Nimbus Squad; I'll let him know when he gets back."

Slick rolls his eyes, but also nods.

It's only a short walk to her quarters. The general needs to get to the bridge quickly in case of any emergencies, of course. The ship echoes with distant noise — the hum of electricity, the various creaks and thumps of metal-on-metal, the quiet whine of mouse droids rolling through the corridors. It's familiar now, in the way that the Temple on Coruscant is familiar; a home, a people.

A people who sometimes listen in to her even when she doesn't want them to, of course. The Sith may know how to hide their full presence in the Force, but only they can do that; with anyone else, if Shmi listens right, she can feel where they are, the Force weaving around and through the presence of life.

She does appreciate that they want to look out for her, but with Rano following her through the vents all the time—

Rano is still on Aayla's ship, Shmi realizes, and keeps walking as calmly as she can.

Thoughts try to crowd her mind, a whirl of confusion and worry, but Shmi is a Jedi — she breathes deep, calms her mind, lets her thoughts and fears wash over her and through her and away. A few more corridors, and she's at her room; she opens the door, then stops.

A breath in, a breath out.

Who could it be?

Well, there's only one good way to find out, really.

"Come out now, please," Shmi says, quietly but with strength. "Whoever you are."

It could be disadvantageous to let a spy know that she knows they're there; a discovered spy could be a good chance to plant false information. Likewise, it might not be a good idea if whoever's watching her is an assassin or bounty hunter. She's just given them incentive to make sure she disappears or otherwise stays quiet about the fact that she's being watched.

But Shmi doesn't think that her watcher is _quite_ either of those things. Not to her, at least. Perhaps the Force tells her, or perhaps something about the way the watcher has behaved in the past — since who knows how long it's been since Rano has truly spied on her? Looking back, she has no way of knowing whether or not he's continued to do it, when any presence she's felt may have been either him or this other watcher.

Her watcher still hasn't come out. Frozen in place, yes; their shields are strong, but Shmi can feel hints of emotions, whispering shock and stinging anger, a touch of confusion and a breath of fear.

Not a Jedi, then.

All right. It's fine if they don't want to come out; Shmi definitely understands a desire to stay hidden and unknown. That doesn't mean she'll let them stay that way, not with so many lives at stake in the war, but she does understand it; it's too bad for them that she has a number of tricks up her sleeve.

The air in a ship is sterile and flat, none of the smells of planetary life, and while there's no true wind there can be breezes, from doors opening and closing, from temperature differences, from the ventilation — and all of those breezes carry dust with them, the dust of thousands of beings living and sweating and working.

It's the dust in the ventilation that Shmi touches with the Force, lifting it up into the slightly drifting air; it swirls around, hopefully not too noticeably, and she keeps her mind on it until it brushes against something not-air. Piece by piece, speck by speck, the dust comes to rest on her watcher's skin and clothes and weapons, outlining them in her mind a particle at a time.

She can see, visualized like a grainy hologram: a smooth head, a cloak, a mask covering her mouth but not her eyes; a blaster, a small pyramid, many knives, and two lightsabers. Asajj Ventress.

And — a small pyramid.

"Well," she says, a smile tugging at the corner of her mouth. "Lady Zannah. It's been a while."

"Master Skywalker." Zannah flickers into view, beams of red light emanating down from the vents. "Or is it General, now?"

Shmi ignores the question. "And Asajj Ventress — I assume you're here to talk; that will likely be easier face-to-face, if you're amenable. It can't be comfortable hiding in the ventilation all the time."

Ventress is silent.

"She doesn't trust you," Zannah says, and looks Shmi up and down. "You've had quite an exciting war, haven't you? And yet you're no closer to discovering the source of all your troubles."

"I can't imagine why she doesn't trust me," Shmi says dryly. "It's almost as if we're on opposing sides of a war, or something." She sighs, then steps into her quarters; Zannah can't follow, not without Asajj moving her holocron to a better angle. "But I'm sure you've told her enough about me for her to form her own opinions, not whatever Vulsion might be telling her."

"What, no title for the other Lady?" Zannah's tone is both curious and needling.

"I'll treat her with courtesy when she treats me with courtesy." Shmi yawns, then winces as she stretches muscles still sore from sparring. "Note that that doesn't mean not trying to kill me, or having a fair playing field. But it does mean not being rude about it, and not being dishonest about it. If she wanted me dead, she should have let Grievous fight me; if she doesn't want me dead she should stop getting in my way."

"What if I want you dead?"

Ventress's voice is raspy and low, just like she's heard from recordings; her tone is carefully neutral, but Shmi senses a hint of indignant prodding behind it.

"If you want me dead, then we'll fight, I suppose," Shmi says, hiding a smile. "But I don't think that's what you want here, is it?"

Zannah's hologram flickers away as Ventress leaves, crawling away through the vents to wherever on the ship she's made her lair.

 

* * *

 

 

It's a couple more days until she sees Ventress again, and Shmi spends the time mentally going over whatever things Ventress may or may not know.

She does know that Shmi is trying to save the clones. That Shmi has doubts about Grievous's true intentions, that she's tracking down more and more information about any lead she can find that might point her towards the Sith.

She doesn't know that Shmi is learning the vaapad. She doesn't know that it's Padmé who's doing their data analysis, and she doesn't know where Beru is or what trail she's on — Shmi herself doesn't know that.

There is still much, much more information that Zannah knows that Shmi would rather prefer she didn't.

Zannah isn't an enemy on the same level of Sidious or Vulsion, no; she may even call herself a temporary ally. But she'll take every chance she gets to push and prod Shmi into falling, which is not really something that Shmi wants to deal with. Especially not now.

But she has to deal with it, because the only other option is not dealing with it — is telling Ventress to leave without whatever it is she came for. Shmi can't do that, not when she thinks that she knows exactly what Ventress wants, even if Ventress herself can't quite express it.

The day after the 144th leaves Aayla's siege behind, traveling to practically the other side of the galaxy on the vague hope that they might get lucky and find traces of Grievous's trail, Ventress appears again, dropping down into the ship's small training salle as Shmi begins her morning katas. Not the vaapad ones, but djem so, for blaster combat, soresu for defence, makashi for duels.

"Why have _you_ been chasing after Grievous?" Ventress demands.

Shmi refrains from sighing. "Good morning."

Ventress just stares at her, waiting for an answer.

"The main lightsaber form I know — the one I use when I'm not getting shot at by droids — is makashi, good for lightsaber duels. Grievous also uses a derivative form. Few enough Jedi are masters of makashi that I get to be the lucky one not needed anywhere else. Master Dooku is busy with the rest of the war effort, and Master Ki-Adi-Mundi is busy on the High Council, as is Master Shaak Ti." Shmi raises her eyebrows. "But you probably don't need me to be lecturing you on a lightsaber form that you clearly have studied; if whoever taught you didn't say, you should know that the best counter for defensive makashi is overwhelming force. One of the most overwhelming forces in lightsaber combat is offensive makashi."

"Hm." Ventress stays there, quiet, watching her.

After a few minutes of the quiet staring contest, Shmi mentally shrugs and continues with her routine, a warm-up before she goes into true katas.

Just as she's ready to begin going through the first djem-so kata, Ventress speaks again.

"Why help the clones? You're only depleting your own army even faster than you would otherwise."

"You know that I'm from Tatooine," Shmi says. "I hear you encountered my son quite a few times there. You know that I used to be a slave. Nobody deserves that."

Ventress snorts. "What does anything have to do with what we deserve?"

Shmi nods. "Very little, of course. But so often… people say, _the galaxy isn't fair_ , like that's some excuse or justification. If the galaxy isn't fair, surely we should try to make it be more fair."

"And what if that's a futile task?"

"It's not," Shmi says, and smiles. "If I see two buildings on fire but could only put out one, it would be better to put out one than to leave both burning. If there was a plague, and I had a vaccine but couldn't cure those already ill, the vaccine would still save lives. If I could only save one clone out of the entire army, I would still save that one, who could then have a chance to live free."

Ventress shakes her head, but doesn't say anything.

"It's a hard lesson to learn, one everyone struggles with sometimes," Shmi continues, going through the kata at quarter-speed. "Sometimes the galaxy seems so large, so hopeless, so broken that even everyone working together may not be enough to fix it. But then sometimes it rains, and I'm reminded that there are so many wonderful places in the galaxy that how could I give up on something I love so deeply?"

That idea resonates with Ventress somehow, she can tell, but still Ventress frowns, looking like she disagrees. "Why should I want to help in the first place?"

It's a common question, with a multitude of answers. Shmi deliberately makes herself sound surprised. "Well, helping makes the galaxy a better place, doesn't it?"

"I suppose—"

"And you want the galaxy to be a better place, don't you?"

"Why should I—"

"Because you live here, of course," Shmi says with a slight smile. "If the galaxy is better, then surely it's better for everyone in it, too. Of course, then come the disagreements about what _better_ really means, and how to achieve it, and who to help first — and then it all gets bogged down in bureaucracy, and that's the flaw of the Republic."

"That, and the corrupt politicians ignoring the true problems, and the core planets focusing only on making themselves richer, and—" Ventress breaks off, shaking her head.

"Ah, but the core planets believe that the galaxy will be better if they're richer," Shmi says, and laughs at Ventress's disgusted expression. "It's dumb, but if you approach your conflicts with the idea that the other person truly thinks they're doing the best for everyone, you'll be right more often than not. It's much easier to talk someone around if you can see the problem from their side, too."

Ventress looks away from her as Shmi continues the rest of the kata.

"What do you want?" Ventress finally says.

"What do _I_ want?" Shmi glances over at her. "I want my family safe and happy, I want all the slaves to be free, I want every being in the galaxy to have a chance to live a fulfilling life. Ventress — Asajj — what do _you_ want?"

Ventress doesn't meet her eyes.

Shmi continues through her katas silently, moving on from djem so to soresu to finally her favored makashi. Vaapad can wait for later, when Ventress isn't here.

"I learned makashi from my master's Shadow."

Shmi pauses halfway through a swing, then continues smoothly, listening to Ventress.

"She knows it as well, of course, but it's not her favored style; when she has to resort to lightsaber combat she uses mainly soresu or a jar'kai form. That's likely information your analysts don't have yet, since she's good at not having to resort to lightsaber combat."

Both statements true, and the implications are troubling; Vulsion does not seem to have a personality consistent with enjoying soresu, though dual-wielding would be far from unlikely given her apparent appetite for destruction.

"But it's her Shadow who taught Grievous and I," Ventress continues, still not looking at Shmi. "I don't know who he is — male, humanoid, tall. During the beginning of the war, and for a couple of years before that, he would show up occasionally, never for more than a week at a time. He taught Grievous and I about the Jedi styles and how to counter them, emphasizing makashi. Vulsion never addresses him as anything but 'my Shadow,' and they communicate often. He uses no form of address for her. They conspire about Vulsion's master's plans, but I… can't tell whether or not her master knows about the Shadow."

"I see," Shmi says when Ventress sounds like she's done, even though she doesn't see, really.

"There," Ventress says. "Knowledge for knowledge."

When Shmi turns to look at her again, she's gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A note on what happened to Aayla: I... haven't actually read the EU bit in question? (or even most of the EU) (to be completely honest I've only read like 4 EU books total and they're from the empire era) I got most of the details from Wookieepedia, though all of the recovery stuff is mine. It's a bit of a mess - of course it is, it's the EU - but I thought the base concept was interesting so I borrowed it.
> 
> Also: reena_jenkins made amazing, fantastic, beautiful [podfics](http://archiveofourown.org/series/900135) for the first bit of the series!! Wow, I'm still in shock, these are just gorgeous
> 
> Stuff's been happening, but hopefully next semester should be organized much better; I'm not gonna jinx it, but I've got high hopes for these next few months :)
> 
> Thanks so much to all of the people who read and comment; I haven't been able to reply to most of them, but every single comment I get makes me so happy. I love all of you <3


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Secrets are beginning to be revealed. Many things lurk in the dark places of the galaxy, in the shadows.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to [Eeddis](http://eeddis.tumblr.com/) for betaing this!

 

It's late for Coruscant's day/night cycle, but not so late for Rex, or the rest of the 501st; even when they're actively trying to keep Senate time, sleep cycles are going to change on a ship. Since they're back on-planet, everyone's trying to get readjusted. Everyone except Rex and Kix, actually; Kix because he's a crazy medic used to keeping all sorts of nonsense hours, and Rex because… well, Rex because it's his responsibility. Conducting a search for spies in their legion isn't an easy job, but if anyone has to lose sleep over it, it should be Rex.

It hurts, on a level he hadn't expected it to, that Kix had found _any_. He doesn't like thinking that any brother would betray them, for whatever reason — even if the brother in question doesn't think of it as a betrayal, just thinks of it as going to another Jedi, another General, with whatever information they're leaking. It's not specifically the loss of information that hurts Rex. It's the loss of trust.

When Rex gets to the infirmary, Kix is of course wide awake, ready and waiting with a datapad and a grim expression.

Rex claps his brother on the shoulder in greeting, then without pause asks, "How many?"

Kix grimaces. "Too many. Not necessarily a large _number_ , mind you, but when you really look at it, they're almost all in key positions."

Rex swears quietly. "Any word from the 212th about their status?"

"None yet, but then last I heard they were in combat. Cody doesn't have anywhere near enough time on his hands to deal with this."

"Neither do we," Rex grumbles, but they're stuck dealing with it anyway, so he sighs and moves on. "How in all the hells did they get so many of our people to become spies?"

It's when Kix doesn't reply that Rex knows that things are worse than bad.

"Kix. How?"

He doesn't look at Rex, even when he finally starts talking. "The easiest way for me to check if someone is lying, for me to get gossip, all of that — it's easiest to have people hooked up to monitors, for them to think I'm busy doing my job. So yes, I was able to pinpoint a decent number of brothers who aren't quite honest. But as I was finding them…" he pulls up a screen, a chart showing various percentages. "Ninety-nine percent of the 501st is completely loyal. Of the remaining one percent, nine out of ten or more are showing signs of either exposure to or withdrawal from… _something_. Sometimes a mix of somethings. I haven't been able to isolate the compounds, but I can guess from the symptoms that whatever it is, the main drug, isn't doing anything other than a mild buzz and… being addictive."

Rex stares at his brother. "They're—"

"Yes."

"Who?"

Kix looks more tired than Rex has ever seen him, even after days-long campaigns with only one medic and constant bombardment. "The highest ranked are Pips, Mandarb, Kel, and Appo."

"Can you… is there anything you can do to… fix it? Get them un-addicted?"

"Not without knowing more about which specific drugs they used. The best way to know is to get some from a brother who's compromised, but we also have to be subtle and quick. Whoever's doing this probably won't dare give out more than a dose or two at a time, or the brother would use it all at once. They have to keep some regular schedule, though, and that means they have to know where we are, where we're going, and when we're going to be in long-term combat. Sir, we're dealing with…"

Rex sees it, finally. "Something on a completely different level." The Sith. "And here I thought we'd just be dealing with Jedi politics. It's never just smoke, is it?"

"It's never just a storm," Kix replies absently, then pauses. "Huh. You know, this is just the sort of thing to contact Sarad about."

"But how?" It's not that Rex disagrees, but this needs to be thought through before they rush ahead. The stakes are… unspeakably high. "We can't go to the General with this." That's no question. Anakin is a good leader, a good warrior, a good friend, but he is _not_ subtle enough for this to work.

"No." Kix runs his hands over his scalp, a nervous tic that he's had since he got his tattoos. "But we can go to Commander Tano—"

"Are you _serious_ —"

"And we can go to Senator Amidala," Kix finishes, glaring at Rex. "She's level-headed and knows when to keep quiet, and she knows when to _not_. We can't keep this from all the Jedi, but we've already decided that she can handle more than most of them can. She's got more freedom to research, freedom to ask questions… we _need_ more than just us two here. Come on, Captain."

Rex glares at Kix, then swears and looks away. "Fine. Her and Amidala. They're deep in this; they're bound to have some way to contact Sarad. Meanwhile, preventative measures."

"We can't just keep intel away from the entire legion," Kix says, "But I also can't think of any other strategy. We can't mitigate the addiction yet, and if it's the addiction that's forcing them to spill our secrets…"

That's not it, Rex knows, but he's not willing to say what it is. Military secrets… to target members of the 501st, to keep them consistently supplied with whatever it is, they'd already have to know military secrets. If they have spies in the 501st, they're not there to spy on the army. They're there to spy on the _people_. Their hunt for the Sith may already be compromised more than they can imagine. The freedom trail, all the clones they've smuggled out of the army, any of it could be compromised. All of it could be.

Still, pretending that it's military secrets the Sith are after means that if they know that the army knows something, the Sith will think it's something _else_ they know…

All this spy business gives Rex a headache.

"We spread false intel," he says. "Not official info, but the kind of things we're not supposed to know but do anyway."

"The only thing faster than lightspeed is gossip," Kix murmurs. "And the only thing faster than gossip is rumor. We flood the rumor mill, the spies pass on all they hear, whoever is controlling them doesn't know fact from fiction…"

"And we're hopefully safer than we were," Rex confirms. They won't be, but it's a nice thought. "Get Jesse on it. Not Hardcase, he's too obvious, but Jesse knows how to be subtle. And not Domino squad — you can imagine the kind of disaster that would be. And—"

"I'll handle it," Kix says, rolling his eyes. "Or, well, Jesse will. You focus on getting Amidala and the Commander informed." He hesitates. "Although…"

Rex narrows his eyes. "What?"

"It's probably nothing."

"You wouldn't have brought it up if it was _probably nothing_ ," Rex retorts. "Spill."

"I did some brain scans, just in case," Kix admits. "Nothing was technically _wrong_ , but on a few of them I got some weird resonance from this one particular area. It wasn't always strong, but it was always in the same location, which is unusual enough to make me want some more in-depth—"

Rex's comm buzzes. Three short buzzes, pause, repeat, not the usual chime—

"Emergency," Kix says, and grabs his portable medkit. "Hells. What could it be _here_?"

Rex is too busy answering the comm to respond. "This is Captain Rex of the 501st—"

"Rex." It's the General's voice, tense with worry. "I need you to meet me in the senate dome, ASAP. We've got news. There's going to be an emergency Senate meeting that we'll be expected to report at."

"Yes, sir," Rex says. "I can be there in ten."

"Good. See you soon."

The comm goes silent.

"Kix, stay here," Rex orders. "No, I'm serious, the Senate has plenty of medics, you'll be better off staying here in case something else happens."

"Fine," Kix grumbles. "At least take some bacta patches." He tosses a small container at Rex, who attaches it to his belt. "Kriff. I wonder what the news is _this_ time? Must be big, if they've got the General telling the Senate—"

Rex is already out the door.

It's easy enough to catch the next transport from the shipyards to the Senate. They run regularly; the war stops for no emergency. It's quiet, this time of night, letting Rex catch his breath, stop worrying about spies, and start worrying about whatever this news is.

Not much will be expected of Rex; his presence will be more about presenting a strong, united front, reminding the Senate that they are the Jedi and the army and that they can handle nearly anything. He'll be expected to stand straight and keep a calm expression no matter what the news is.

Oh, well. That's what helmets are for.

The Senate dome seems to be the only place on this side of Coruscant that's not quiet and sleepy; it buzzes like a hive of insects, Senators and aides and all kinds of beings rushing to and fro. Rex spots Anakin and Ahsoka easily, falling in behind them like he's always stood at Anakin's right hand.

"General," he says quietly. "Commander. The hell is going on?"

Ahsoka shakes her head, glancing ahead at Anakin. "If we say it here it'll be all over the Senate before we can announce it officially."

"As if it isn't already," Anakin snaps.

Ahsoka ignores him. "Sorry. You'll have to find out with everyone else. And… it's big."

They reach the hoverpad they'll occupy, the Chancellor himself standing outside it. He places his hand on Anakin's shoulder, murmurs something, looking solemn — Rex can't hear what it is, but it must be comforting, because Anakin relaxes a bit once he says it.

And then they're striding into the Senate itself, being lifted up on the hoverpad in front of thousands of beings from across the galaxy.

"Honorable beings of the Senate," Anakin — General Skywalker — begins. "The Jedi Temple has received a report from the furthest reaches of this galaxy. General Grievous was found dead this morning on the second moon of Kessel—"

It takes a long moment for Rex to realize that the roaring in his ears is coming from the Senators and not the shock.

Well.

There goes their best lead.

 

* * *

 

 

Coruscant's sun has risen by the time the Senate dismisses Rex and his Jedi. Hours of questions, hours of asking how it had happened, why it had happened, what the consequences were — hours, despite the fact that even Anakin had very few answers.

And they're not quite done yet.

"I've got all sorts of meetings with individual senators who need to be reassured," Anakin says, and grimaces. "At least Chancellor Palpatine will be there, helping me calm them down. Ugh. You two head back to the Temple or the ship. You don't need to be here for this, it'll just be more of the same."

"Thanks, Skyguy," Ahsoka says gratefully, and yawns. "C'mon, Rex, let's go get some sleep."

"Yes, sir," Rex says, with feeling. "Here, let's go this way. Maybe we can avoid the crowds—"

"Psst. Hey!"

Rex glances over, then stops dead.

Ahsoka glances back at him, a few paces ahead. "What is it?"

Boba Fett waves at him from an alcove, half in shadow but still recognizable.

"It's one of my brothers," Rex tells Ahsoka, then hurries over. "The hell are you _doing_ here? I thought you were staying in the Temple—"

Boba rolls his eyes. "Yeah, yeah, the Temple's boring. Come on, want to go catch up somewhere there aren't too many people? It's been _aaaaaages_ , I want to hear about the war!"

Rex almost asks what Boba thinks he's playing at, pretending to act like an overeager civvie kid, before he thinks Boba's words through. Boba wants to go somewhere nobody can listen in.

"If you insist," Rex says, making himself sound like he's indulging a shiny. "Come on, show us around. Have you met Commander Tano?"

Boba nods at her, grinning. "I heard you were kidnapped by _pirates_! That's so cool. What happened?"

He keeps up the chatter as he leads them through the back ways of the Senate, innocent questions about the war from a child. About three quarters of the way there, Rex figures out where they're going, and then he's even more confused than he was before.

Senator Amidala's office is lavish, though Boba leads them through to a more sensibly-decorated side room. Nobody stops them as they walk through her main office, even though there are people there; a few of them even wave at Boba, and he nods back.

Once the door is shut behind them, he stops his idle chatter like he'd never spoken. "This room is clean of bugs, and if you've got any attached to you, they shouldn't be able to transmit a signal out," Boba says.

"I need to get a message to Sarad."

Ahsoka and Boba both turn to face Rex, both of them frowning.

"What?" Ahsoka glances at Boba, then back at Rex. "Did something happen with—"

"Yes." Rex takes a deep breath. "There are members of the 501st who are… compromised. Drugged, with something addictive, and coerced to pass on intel—"

"Kriff." Boba's face is pale. "I'll pass it on. She'll get back to you. You might be able to make some progress looking through this mound of data on the Bando Gora that General Kenobi found somewhere, too; I'll message you instructions for how to access it."

"Hey, I heard about that," Ahsoka says, her lekku twitching a bit. "Isn't that restricted to the High Council?"

Boba shrugs. "Maybe? Do you really care?"

"Only if it's gonna get us caught," she says with a grin.

Boba grins back, then turns serious again. "I'm guessing that you're not telling your general?"

Ahsoka opens her mouth to protest, then closes it again. "I… he wouldn't take it well, would he."

"He wouldn't." Rex shakes his head. He hasn't even gotten into whatever weird resonance Kix had found in their brains, yet, but that information could wait for another day, when they had more time. "I'll look into that data. Thanks, Bob'ika… now, what are you _doing_ here?"

Boba grins, a real grin this time, not the childish one he'd worn when walking through the corridors. "I'm helping the Senator with her stuff, and she's helping me with some of mine. Buir doesn't know, I think. Yet." His grin vanishes. "I'm guessing you don't know anything more about what happened with Grievous?"

Ahsoka shakes her head, then glances over at Rex.

Rex thinks it over for a moment, then nods.

Ahsoka nods back. "We had a lead," she explains. "Shmi… she talked to Grievous, was maybe going to be able to make a deal with him. For information."

"So the Seppies offed him and made it look like an accident, or a battle gone wrong," Boba murmurs. On his face is an expression that Rex recognizes; it makes him look even more like his buir, and like Beru. "And… they picked General Skywalker to deliver the news? Why?"

Ahsoka shrugs, though she does look a little worried. "It was General Kenobi and the 212th who found Grievous. That could explain it. And Shmi's been chasing after him, too."

Boba nods, but something tells Rex that Boba thinks there's something more to it.

"The fallout from this is going to be…" Boba thinks for a moment. "Big."

Ahsoka frowns. "What do you mean, fallout?"

"Well, Grievous is dead, but if people listen carefully they're going to notice that the details don't add up," Boba explains, going over to a table and picking up a holopad. "The news has already picked it up, and it sounds like most of Coruscant is celebrating. The ones who aren't… they're one of two kinds. The kind who's noticed that the Jedi aren't claiming responisbility for Grievous's death — they might start asking if the Republic is resorting to using assassins now, or if the Jedi aren't even able to kill one separatist general. Of course, we could also use that kind." Boba grins; it's not a nice grin. "If it's acknowledged, or even rumored, that Grievous got offed by the Seppies, we can spread rumors that there's infighting. It might even be true, and it would make planets think twice before pledging themselves to a cause that doesn't even trust itself."

"And…" Ahsoka is watching the newsfeeds that Boba is flipping through. "Since we _know_ that the Separatists are keeping secrets, it's likely they're keeping some secrets from each other. Rumors of infighting might spark _real_ infighting."

Boba nods. "I can probably get on that — well, me and the Senator. Coruscant is a great place for rumor."

Ahsoka grins. "You know Shmi has some undercity friends here, right? I bet you can get their contact info if you ask."

Boba shakes his head. "Thanks, but I've got my own contacts."

"So," Rex says, trying to get them back on track. "You said there were two kinds of people who wouldn't be celebrating."

"Right." Boba isn't grinning now; now he looks as serious as Sarad does sometimes. "The other kind is the people who know something they shouldn't. Like us — or like spies. People who don't just suspect but _know_ that something was fishy with Grievous's death, who know that he was killed and there was a _reason_ for it."

Rex shivers. "The spy who leaked that we were close to getting intel from him."

"Maybe." Boba glances at the door to Amidala's main office. Rex can't see anything at the door, but when Boba looks back Rex catches the glint of an earpiece. "Looks like the Senator has a meeting with the Chancellor. Here, lemme show you a back way out of this place."

The whole way back to the Jedi Temple, and then back to the ship, Rex can't help thinking about what Boba had said. That people who weren't celebrating had noticed that things didn't add up… nothing about this whole war added up. Inconsistencies, deception, nonsense campaigns and hunts across the galaxy, and so much of it linking right back to the Senate, to the Skywalkers, to the clones themselves…

Rex hopes to the Force, or fate, or luck, anything — he hopes Sarad will be able to get to the bottom of this, and soon. For all their sakes.

 

* * *

 

 

"So," Beru says, and doesn't lower her blaster. "What are you doing here?"

"I could ask you the same question," the Jedi says, and grins like he's flirting, though the whole effect is somewhat ruined by the fact that he hasn't turned his lightsaber off, either.

Bo Katan cocks her blaster. "We asked first."

Beru sighs. "Let's not be hasty," she tells Bo. Then, back to the Jedi, "But that's not saying that we'll leave without answers, either. One more time: what are you doing here?"

The Jedi glances between the two of them, then behind them at the other five mandalorians who look completely unconcerned. With a sigh, he disengages his lightsaber and stands down. "Somebody — let's call him Ben — sent me as a messenger."

"I don't know any Ben." Beru keeps her blaster up and ready; even though she's on the side of the Jedi, she's not sure if they know that, or if this one is really a Jedi and not just a Sith in disguise, and she's not about to risk it.

"Really? Well, his friend Cody at least knows you pretty well."

Ben and Cody — Obi-Wan and Cody.

Beru lowers her blaster, though she doesn't holster it quite yet. Bo Katan makes a disgusted noise and does the same.

"What's the message?"

"We're getting messages from _Jedi_ now?" Bo Katan grumbles quietly. "What have you gotten us into, Sarad?"

Beru ignores Bo Katan. "Well?"

"Two parts," the Jedi says. "Well, three — first is to check the newsfeeds if you haven't, these past few days. Grievous—"

"We've heard."

The Jedi nods. "Good. Second part is this: all the data we have on how he was killed." He holds up a datastick. "Includes holos of the body, the place where it was found, and the autopsy scan and report."

Beru holds out her hand; he tosses the data stick gently, and she catches it. Her opinion of him goes up; this Jedi has definitely worked with bounty hunters before, to know that she wouldn't let him get close enough to hand it to her.

"And the third part?" Bo Katan asks, sounding remarkably patient — well, for her.

"The third part is an offer of assistance."

Bo Katan sneers at him. "What, and whoever this is is offering _you_?"

"Yep." The Jedi grins, and lifts up his hand, spreading it out so they can see. It's not some force trick, just him trying to show them something—

Oh.

Fingerless gloves and bright facial tattoos. That means this Jedi isn't _just_ a Jedi. "You're a Kiffar psychometrist. That means…" Beru thinks for a moment. "Quinlan Vos."

"At your service." Vos bows like he's an actor in a holodrama. "And I do mean that. Ben hasn't given me all the details, so there's not much I can do to compromise you if you don't want me here. If you do want me here, though, know that I'm only boasting a little bit when I say that I'm one of the most skilled psychometrists in the galaxy."

Beru thinks for a long moment. Vos's words and tone are playful, but his stance is serious. The cover that Beru's taken advantage of — that they're just mandalorians doing mandalorian things, arguing about the reformation and the future as they have fun fighting drug lords — is one that the others think is true, and if Vos comes with them, she'll have to explain… more than she'd like to. That said, psychometry is not a skill to dismiss lightly; even the most careful people can get caught easily by somebody who can pick up an item and see everything that's happened to it.

"Well?" she says quietly, and turns to Bo Katan.

Bo glances at her, frowning. "You're the leader. It's your call."

"It is," Beru agrees. "But it's also not easy to work with Jedi, and I'd take our people over one Jedi. I'd like to have both, of course, but if you think that the others won't be willing to work with him…"

It's quiet for another long moment as Bo Katan thinks it over, the frown still on her face. "They won't like it," she says, "But they'll deal with it."

"Good." Beru looks back at Vos. "All right. You're in."

"Does this mean that _now_ you'll explain what you're actually trying to do here?" The other mandalorians — the ones in this particular safe house, at least — have stopped pretending that they aren't paying attention.

"Partially," Beru says, a little amused despite herself.

Nad'aai grins, her twi'leki teeth sharp. "Excellent. I have bets to win. Come on, introduce this Jedi, I want to be the one to tell the others you're friends with them."

Beru rolls her eyes. "Just for that, you get to wait to hear what's up until we're all together again. Besides, we've got other things to deal with. Vos, how'd you find us?"

"I knew your description, and that you were on Malastare, from Ben." He's busy reconfiguring his outfit — wrapping his cloak differently, hiding his lightsaber so it's not so obvious what it is. "Once I got here, I heard about that factory explosion, figured there would be a good place to start; found your trail, followed it here, you know the rest."

Nothing that would compromise them to anyone who didn't have psychometry, then. Beru knows better than to ask if he was followed; everything she's heard about Vos's reputation says that he's as much a professional as any of the others here.

"We're planning on laying low for another day and a half, so the local authorities don't bother us when we head out," Beru explains. "We didn't get much from this factory, so I was just planning on heading to the next Bando Gora base I know of; since you're here now, though, you should look around the factory — well, where the factory used to be—"

Bo Katan grins, and two of the others high five.

"— To see if you can pick something up. Be back before dark."

Vos nods. "It shouldn't take me more than a couple of hours." He turns and leaves, closing the door softly behind him.

"All right," Beru says, likely before he's even out of hearing range. "Let's talk."

None of the others will meet her eyes, even though they all have their helmets off.

"Is this going to be a problem?" Beru crosses her arms. "You all could guess, at least, that I'm doing this partially for the Jedi. Some of you have bets on it. So?"

Nad'aai shrugs; Bo Katan glares at the floor.

One of the others, green-armored Kurshi, crosses their arms right back at Beru. "Jango gave us a decent amount of osik about Vizsla dealing with the Sith. How's dealing with the Jedi any better?"

"Well, for one, the Jedi won't shoot lightning at you if you don't do as they say," Beru says dryly. "For another, they can be rude and disrespectful, but they won't stab you in the back unless you deserve it. For a third, I'm not dealing with the Jedi — the Jedi are dealing with _me_." That would give them something to chew on, at least until Vos came back, hopefully with results. There's been only cold trails after cold trails, hints petering off into nothing. This factory had taken weeks confirm as a Bando Gora base, and they'd gotten practically _nothing_ from it. Well, other than the satisfaction of blowing it up. Beru's next lead would have put them back at the beginning, going down a long trail to what will undoubtedly be another factory, or distribution plant, or _anything_ except for what she's actually looking for.

It's been three hours, not two, when Vos comes back, looking exhausted and triumphant; Beru sits up straight because that can only mean one thing.

"Have I mentioned how much I hate Malastare?" Vos says, sitting down hard and peering at the game of dejarik that Nad'aai has started winning. "Because I really hate Malastere. Anyways." He shakes his head. "I did find something, though I almost got brained by a gran on my way back."

Bo Katan snickers, but Beru gestures for her to quiet down. "What did you find?"

For all that Vos looks tired, his eyes are bright with a light that Beru recognizes. "A lead."

 

* * *

 

 

"You've heard, then?"

"Of course," Shmi says quietly, the hologram flickering as she folds her hands. "I doubt there's anyone in the galaxy who hasn't, yet."

Beru sighs. "I'm sorry."

Shmi quirks an eyebrow. "It's far from your fault. I should have done more to try and keep the lead I had close, but I didn't, and now the lead is gone. That's life. Besides, now Ani can stop worrying about me every time we're not in the same system."

Beru rolls her eyes. "Shmi, I hate to break it to you, but he'll _never_ stop worrying."

"Well, I can still hope." Shmi looks Beru straight in the eye, even though the flickering blue of the hologram somewhat ruins the effect. "Now, what's this really about?"

"We've picked up a trail," Beru says. "I shouldn't really be comming you, but we're planning to make our raid in half an hour, and there's not much prep they can do before then, but—" she breaks off, shaking her head. "Ben — you know, Cody's friend — sent a messenger, saying that he thinks there's a leak in the comms. But I did promise you that I'd let someone know about every raid, so this is the compromise."

Shmi nods slowly. "I see. And you're not giving me the location, in case we are being monitored; you've got something set up so that if you don't check in, it will—"

"Of course." Beru gestures to the ship around her. "If I don't input a code into my helmet every half-hour, the ship will transmit our last known coordinates to Cody's friend. And…" she grins. "Ben's messenger has been very helpful, on our trip here. He's been teaching us about the way Jedi shield their minds; there are no guarantees that it'll work if they catch and drug us, but it's better than nothing." It still stings, her memory of Geonosis, where they'd caught her and drugged her and told her to make sure Jango knew that everything was all right and she'd just _done_ it. Vos has explained over and over that there are no guarantees it'll work, but Beru feels much better walking into battle with her mind in a shell of beskar'gam than she does with not even a hope of resistance.

"Interesting," Shmi murmurs. "I hadn't considered… well, more the fool me, then. This messenger has been talking you through the meditation and visualization, then? Hm. Keep in mind that it can be more complex than a simple shield; I've walked through others' minds where roots have tried to drag me down, where I've become lost in a maze of streets, where I had to pick one star out of a sea of millions… the limit is only what you can imagine."

Beru nods slowly. It makes her wonder what Shmi's mind looks like — the Jedi Temple, the bridge of a star destroyer… but no, Shmi is of Tatooine, the burning suns and sandstorms—

"I see," Beru says. No time to change what her mind feels like now, but something to ponder for the future.

"You should go prepare," Shmi says with a smile. "Thank you for the forewarning, and may the Force be with you."

The hologram goes dark, and Beru looks down at the ship's computer. Two separate codes, one to halt the distress call, one to send it out early.

"You ready?" Bo Katan stands in the hallway, waiting for her.

"Almost," Beru says, and pulls her helmet on. It prompts her for the code, which she inputs — _SHEV'LA._ Quiet. All quiet, all safe.

Whatever this base is, Beru doesn't think it's a traditional Bando Gora base. More likely, it's a hideout, maybe even one for the Sith. That means they have to be careful, even more careful than usual; this time they're not destroying, they're infiltrating.

Beru, Bo Katan, Vos, Nad'aai, Jorad, Kurshi, and Aln. Any more would be too much of a risk, and even then she's only bringing that many because Bo Katan won't leave her side, and Aln and Kurshi are their best codebreakers.

The hideout is massive — almost a palace, really. Its swooping architecture is elegant and rich, and Beru has to wonder if this is really the place they're looking for. But there's a grimace on Vos's face, making him look slightly sick to his stomach.

"I can feel the darkness from here," he says, and pulls on full gloves, covering his fingertips. "I'm not going to want to touch _anything_ in there."

They rappel up a cliff-face to an empty landing platform, keeping an eye out for traps or alarms. They only find some when Jorad starts trying to get them into the building itself, though.

"Vibration sensitivity on the windows." He pulls out a scanner and lets it rest just above the window's surface, not quite touching. "Real glass — fancy. But if any of us talk too loud, or touch it, they'll know we're here. Easy enough to circumvent, though; we just go through the walls. Quietly."

 _Quiet_ and _breaking through walls_ aren't really things that go together, but that's another reason Vos is here. A few lightsaber strokes and they're in.

Beru shivers. It's not cold, and her armor is sealed against the outside air, but something in here smells off, stale and dead.

Kurshi whistles through the comms, impressed. "Someone likes collecting trophies."

There are dozens of them, lining the hallway they've broken into. A crumbling brick, smeared with greenish blood; a slice of fruit, looking almost dangerously fresh; a sliced-off tongue that looks Bothan; a flickering holograph of a crater, smoking orange.

"Let's try heading north," Beru says, whispering despite the comms. "The bulk of the fortress is there. We're more likely to find a data hub that way."

They make their way down the corridors, passing trophy after trophy. It's not too much of a maze, for all that the halls do twist and wind around each other; whatever this place was, it wasn't originally built as a hideout.

Beru pauses by one display, holding two curved lightsabers, one shiny and one blackened and burnt. "I know these. I saw them on Genonsis — Vulsion's lightsabers." She grins — it's a bittersweet memory, but parts of that encounter were a success. "Shmi's the one who burnt that one."

"Nice," Vos says, but he's frowning at them. Does he recognize them from somewhere, too? "I didn't realize she used curved hilts."

Beru glances over at Vos, ready to ask if that means anything, but Vos… swears, suddenly, and stumbles over to another display.

"The hell?" Aln mumbles, crossing their arms. "What's gotten into the Jedi?"

"Beads," Vos says, sounding hollow.

Nad'aai frowns, walking over to the display. "What's so special about some beads?"

"Padawan beads." Vos's voice is almost a whisper. "Light grey for a trial of endurance, light blue for learning how to craft. Yellow for lightsaber skills. Dark purple for a trial of the heart. Vulsion used to be a Jedi Padawan."

"We should go," Bo Katan says, sounding tense — terrified.

Vos looks up, determined, and pulls off one of his gloves. "I need to see, to be sure. But I think I know—"

He stops, and half a lifetime of instincts has Beru inputting the panic code, _ARPAT_. It'll send a message from the ship, let Kenobi know that they're in trouble.

Not even a second later, Vos goes flying backwards, crashing into the wall so hard it cracks.

A shadowed figure stands at the other end of the corridor, one hand out as if he'd gestured. As if he'd been the one to throw Vos at the wall. Casually, he lowers his hand, activating a comm unit on his wrist. "You may destroy their ship now."

"Run," Beru tells the others, then glances back at Vos.

His eyes stare sightlessly up; the wall hadn't been the only thing that cracked.

Aln takes a step backwards, then another.

Jorad steps forward, raising his blasters. "No, we can—"

The Shadow charges, drawing a lightsaber that shines with a deep yellow-orange glow. Not the lightsaber from his belt, Beru can still see the impression of that beneath his robes; this lightsaber came from up the Shadow's sleeve. A backup, or a decoy.

Backup or decoy or no, it takes Jorad's head off easily enough.

Then they are fighting, close-quarters versus a lightsaber, and they've trained for this but not enough — solid beskar'gam will deflect an indirect hit but the Shadow easily carves through the joint at Nad'aai's waist, casually deflects Kurshi's blasts back at her until her visor cracks, slices through Aln's elbow and leaves them scrambling away. Beru's beskar takes a scoring across the chest but doesn't break; in the chaos, she can't see Bo Katan, all of her focus on the Shadow before her.

Something pushes her back — the Force, just like he'd thrown Vos into the wall — and Beru blacks out for a moment as she impacts against the other side of the corridor. When she is finally able to refocus again, everything is quiet, except for the Shadow's slow footsteps.

No, there's more footsteps — clanking ones — droids.

"Cuff her, sedate her." The Shadow's voice is soft and distant. "And be thorough; mandalorians are tricky, and your Lady will want to question her."

 _So close_ …

The only seed of hope is that her distress call was able to transmit before the ship was destroyed. As she's hauled up by droids, her head spinning, Beru holds on to herself tightly, her mind shielded in beskar'gam. Her only hope—

The world goes dark.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Padawan bead colors explained in [ this tumblr post](http://mirandatam.tumblr.com/post/152066820812/hey-so-im-trying-to-think-of-how-to-write-a-bit) that I wrote ages ago. 
> 
> I'm facing a bit of a conundrum. We're almost at the climax, just about one more chapter and then we'll be there, and I'm not sure how to format it - one last long chapter of this? a new fic with a series of chapters? a long oneshot?
> 
> But... yeah. There'll probably be some denouement and wrapup after that. Then... wow. It's scary to think about - I've been writing this fic for a year and a half, now, and it's the longest thing I've ever written. It's scary to think about it being _over_. I don't want to disappoint you all!
> 
> [edit] Sorry if I wasn't clear - there's still one more chapter to go before what I've been thinking of as the finale! we're not quite done yet, folks :)
> 
> Thank you all so, so much for reviewing. Every time I read a review it makes my day light up, makes me that much more inspired to continue.


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The shadow of the Sith lies over everything.

 

 

Barely a second after Shmi's comm goes dark, Beru's face flickering away, it pings again — this time, a simple text message.

_Eighth level down, second corridor from the heating units, third door on the left. 0930. — Z_

Well.

Shmi has no idea how Darth Zannah is able to access a comms unit from a holocron, but if she goes to the room that the Sith has specified, she might be able to find out.

When she gets there, though,she finds Ventress — not a major surprise, but still a slight one. Ventress has taken to avoiding her over the past couple of weeks since she's been revealed to Shmi. She'll watch, from the vents or from empty rooms, from holes in the walls and the floor, but most of the times that Shmi tries to talk to her, she flees. Once in a while, Ventress will talk to her of her own accord — brief questions, snappish, as if she doesn't really want them answered — but the rest of the time, she just… watches.

Darth Zannah, on the other hand, has been a constant conversant. It would be rude for Shmi to ask if they've got some sort of arrangement where Darth Zannah will ask the questions that Ventress can't or doesn't want to, but she is fairly sure that that's what's going on.

But now… when she gets to the room that Darth Zannah had specified, Ventress is _pacing_.

Shmi pauses at the door, watching her pace back and forth across the room, a scowl on her face, her fists clenched. All the chairs in her path have been flung out of the way, either by the Force or by Ventress just throwing them. Shmi can't even tell if Ventress knows she's there or not.

Darth Zannah flickers into being beside her. "Hello, Jedi. Best of luck to your mandalorian, by the way."

"Stay out of my ship's systems, please," Shmi says automatically, not really paying attention. Darth Zannah has had ample opportunity to leak all sorts of incriminating information and hasn't, so it's more of a privacy thing. Besides, Shmi can't really stop her. "Is there something I can do to help?"

"No," Ventress says, at the same time Zannah says "Yes."

Ventress glares at Zannah's hologram. "I don't need any help from her!"

"You need help from someone, and you're unwilling to take it from me," Darth Zannah points out, then glances over at Shmi with a hint of a smirk. "She's been thinking about Grievous."

Ventress growls, but doesn't actually make a move towards the hologram, or the holocron it comes from.

Shmi tilts her head, continuing to ignore Darth Zannah and focus on Ventress. "Why?"

Ventress doesn't reply.

"Even if you haven't come to me for help, you've come to my ship to be near me," Shmi says. "To be near me so you can get my advice. What's the use of being here at all if you don't get what you came for?"

"Fine," Ventress growls, and stops pacing all at once, her split skirts swirling around her. "They — they killed Grievous. Their top general, one of their top assassins to boot, and instead of eliminating the threat from the other side—" she breaks off, shaking her head. "Killing him was a waste! They could have concealed that information, somehow, or made him a better deal, or gotten rid of you somehow. If…"

Shmi waits for a long moment, but Ventress doesn't finish the thought, so Shmi finishes it for her. "If they killed him so easily, how long will they risk keeping you around?"

Ventress nods once, sharply.

"That's why I dislike working with people like that," Shmi says quietly, then takes a seat in one of the scattered chairs. The room looks to be a meeting-room, maybe one of the ones that the engineers use occasionally. "The Trade Federation, the Banking Clans…" She glances at Zannah. "The Sith." Darth Zannah just shrugs, so Shmi continues. "They all treat people as disposable — worth only what they can do in the moment, then discarded or removed as liabilities. From a moral standpoint, it's horrific, treating people as things and using them until they're useless; from a practical standpoint it still doesn't make much sense, except to people who already have that warped point of view."

"From a practical standpoint, it's a waste," Darth Zannah agrees, and Ventress's eyes flicker over to her. "Like you said, even though Grievous was on the brink of releasing vital intelligence, there was only so much he could have told them; you proposed a number of viable solutions to prevent him from doing so."

Zannah sounds inordinately pleased, but Shmi tries not to let that worry her.

"But how am I supposed to trust my master now?!" Ventress kicks a chair, sending it flying across the room. "A slight liability — hah, I'm _already_ a slight liability to her. I'm barely even an apprentice; she'll have no issue getting rid of me."

"Well." It's a bit of an effort to remain calm; Ventress is nearly boiling over with panic and fear and rage, but Shmi lets it slide over her and ignores the clatter the chair makes when it finally falls to the floor. "Might I suggest finding a more welcoming work environment?"

Ventress sneers at her. "Like who? Your _Jedi_?"

"Dathomir," Shmi suggests. "If you have any relatives there, or even if you don't; they'd welcome someone of your… talents. Or go adventure around on your own, feel the Force on all its different worlds — I've heard remarkable things about the resonance on Jedha. Or don't. You could do something unrelated, even! Go be a bounty hunter, or learn how to build ships, or… or be a space pirate if you can't think of anything else. Learn how to garden. Keep decorative fish. Asajj, all the options in the galaxy are open to you, and very few of them will expire if you wait a while to decide what to do."

Ventress is silent for a long moment, staring at her.

"Or," Zannah says, her hologram flickering around until it's sitting on the back of one of the chairs, "Continue what you're doing. You want to be a Sith, and you can't trust your master? Then kill her; take her place as a true Sith apprentice."

Ah — so _that's_ the game that Darth Zannah is playing. Shmi turns the idea over and over in her head, and the more she thinks about it, the more pieces fit. Darth Zannah, who hates the current Sith Master, who dislikes his apprentice — taking an apprentice of her own, and one with great potential. One who Darth Zannah can be proud of; a true Sith.

"Or that, I suppose," Shmi says, making her voice calm. "You've got all the time in the world to decide. Unless we all die first, of course."

Ventress laughs for a moment, looking surprised at Shmi and surprised at herself. "Well—"

Shmi's comm goes off. Three short buzzes, then it falls silent. Then another three short buzzes, and it repeats.

She doesn't even wait to get out of Ventress's hearing before answering it. "What's the emergency?"

Slick's voice is short, taut with worry. "Call from General Kenobi, sir. He's… he's received a call from Sarad."

Beru's emergency distress call. Shmi's breath catches in her throat.

"You'll want to see this, sir," Slick says.

"I'll be at the bridge in five." Her comm clicks off, and Shmi reminds herself to breathe. She glances between Ventress and Darth Zannah, who are looking at her with calm faces.

"If you'll excuse me," she says, and inclines her head slightly; then she turns and walks out of the room.

Then she runs.

 

* * *

 

 

"If you're getting this message, it means something has gone wrong. I've left backups of all the info we've found so far with an ally, codename Vheh, on Takodana. We're on an infiltration mission suggested by Quinlan Vos, who came to us claiming to be sent by Obi-Wan Kenobi; he found, with his abilities, a shuttle…"

The hologram crackles; the image blurs, Beru's voice becoming distant.

"… Malastare to galactic coordinate P-5, in the… …n sector, the S…"

Static.

The distorted hologram disappeared, replaced by one of Obi-Wan.

"I have to assume that whatever device transmitted it was destroyed almost instantly after she sent the distress call. We know she's somewhere in the Outer Rim, but even with knowing the galactic coordinates…" He shakes his head. "She could be in the Esstran sector, the D'Astan sector, the Gordian sector, maybe even Kalamith or Nembus if it got more distorted than we think. If you have any idea…"

Shmi takes a deep breath, staring down at the hologram, unblinking.

"Play it again," she asks, and pretends not to see the sorrow on Obi-Wan's face.

An image of Beru appears before her, distortions already apparent from the beginning of the message in the way the image jerks and distorts.

"If you're getting this message, it means something has gone wrong. I've left backups of all the info we've found so far with an ally, codename Vheh, on Takodana. We're on an infiltration mission suggested by Quinlan Vos, who came to us claiming to be sent by Obi-Wan Kenobi; he found, with his abilities, a shuttle… …alastare to galactic coordinate P-5, in the… …n sector, the S…"

"Would this Vheh person know where she went?" Slick demands.

"Probably not," Obi-Wan says. "To leave backups like that is a risk, since there's a chance that someone undesirable will find the backups; it's highly unlikely that she'd leave something as perilous as her next destination."

"Checking for all the systems that start with an S—"

"The Hydian Way goes through that area," Obi-Wan says, sounding tired. "There are hundreds of systems and thousands of planets that start with that sound or something that approximates to it. Even considering only the Separatist-allied planets — and we don't even know for sure that where she is isn't Republic-allied — there are over a hundred. Besides, it might be a station, it might be an asteroid cluster, it might be a satellite, it could be _anything._ I know. I've tried."

Slick starts pacing, back and forth across the bridge, his hands clenched tight, staring at the floor. Lock's body language is calm, but his eyes are wide and his breaths are short as he sits and stares blankly at a screen.

Maybe Ventress will know, though Ventress has no particular reason to tell her. Maybe Zannah will know, though Zannah will ask for something in return that Shmi will not want to give. Maybe, maybe, maybe. Maybe Padmé will have found something, maybe Beru will be fine somehow and contact them again, maybe.

What is Shmi going to tell Kelin?

She says… something. Reassurances, words, so Obi-Wan doesn't worry about her; lets him hang up the holocall, lets him say he'll pass the word on to Anakin. Anakin is going to be heartbroken — Beru has become almost like a sister to him. Everything feels distant, as Shmi stands there in silence, looking out at the stars, thousands of tiny pinpricks spread across the black.

This is why the Jedi discourage attachment, she thinks clinically. Grief, fear, pain, all of it flooding over her, around her, through her. Overwhelming her, until she's just… numb.

Everything, everything she's seen since this cursed war began, slaves and Sith and the vaapad, death and destruction everywhere the Jedi walk, presses at her. Threatens to rise, a fire in her heart against the ice creeping into her soul.

Shmi is so _tired_.

She sits on the floor, her back to the wall, and tries not to see the way all the troopers are watching her. She is responsible for them, isn't she? It's her duty to protect them.

Slick would disagree, she knows, as would Rano. Lock would disagree, but more quietly; they'd all say it's her duty to _lead_ them, not to protect them.

But it was her duty to guide Beru, and now Beru is… captured. It was her duty to reason with Grievous, and now Grievous is dead. It was her duty to be there for Qui-Gon, too, for Siri who is missing her legs and Obi-Wan who is still hurt by poison and Aayla whose memories were stolen. She is a Jedi, she has _chosen_ to be a Jedi, and it is her duty to _protect_.

One of the consoles beeps, and Shmi sees Lock go over to it, read it, glance over at her. He shakes his head at Slick, who'd been approaching her, and Slick actually obeys.

Lock walks over to her, then, carrying a small datapad he'd connected to the console.

"A message from your son, sir," he says softly. "Text only — here."

It feels like it takes all of Shmi's energy to lift her hand and accept the datapad, but she does it anyways.

_Mom_ , the message reads. _I can feel you all the way from Coruscant. Don't worry — we'll fix this. It wasn't your fault._

Underneath, there's a small image — also text, really, but most datapads don't have Amatakka script built-in and Ani hasn't had a chance to modify these ones yet.

Scrawled on what looks like a dirty napkin is a phrase that translates to _you can't do more than you can do_.

Over a decade ago, on a shiny chrome ship flying towards Coruscant, a recently-freed slave woman had given that advice to the handmaiden of a queen. Padmé had been young, determined, scared, brave. She had been unsure what to do, and Shmi had reminded her — you do what you can, and you keep doing what you can.

Just a week ago, she'd spoken to Ventress, told her that even a small act of good was better than doing nothing. _There are so many wonderful places in the galaxy — how could I give up on something I love so deeply?_

Shmi closes her eyes and breathes.

Beru would want her to do her best.

There's a small commotion at the entrance to the bridge; Shmi doesn't pay it much attention, though Lock goes over to it.

"You heard, then?" She hears Lock say quietly.

"I did." It's Rano who's shown up, then. "It's—"

Slick interrupts him. "Do you have any idea — wait. How the hells did you find out _already_?"

"That's not important—"

"You were all the way down in Engineering!"

"I know where Sarad is," Rano says.

 

* * *

 

 

Shmi's quarters are cramped, even without five extra people trying to fit inside. Rano sits awkwardly on the bed, and Lock sits beside him; Slick has claimed her chair, spinning it around so he's resting with his arms crossed on the seat's back. Captains Luna and Hex lean against one of the walls, occasionally murmuring to each other; the other two captains, Trip and Buff, are manning the bridge in case of emergencies. The quarters are cramped, it's true, but better this than having to walk through the hallways for long minutes to find a more open private space. Better this than having to discuss what needs to be discussed in front of the entire legion.

Shmi herself stands, her posture almost military — she's picked up so much from the clones. Her stance wide, her arms clasped tightly behind her back as if to hold on and keep herself from shattering.

"Explain," she says, not bothering to hide the whirlwind of emotions in her tone.

Rano opens his mouth, then closes it again. His hands, too, are clasped tightly in his lap. When he finally speaks, he does so quietly, his shoulders slumped, his head down. "General — you know I've been… spying on you. Reporting on your decisions, tactics, goals, and all that."

Slick snorts. "Get to the point."

Rano glances up at Slick. "A couple of months ago, I stopped."

For such a full room, the momentary silence is deafening.

"Not fully," Rano continues. "But… more of the bare facts, the actions and the consequences. Less of the opinions, the guesses, the… well, the secrets. That time I was injured, in the infirmary, just after we'd started the hunt for Grievous, Slick came to talk to me."

Slick gives a start, sitting up.

"He pointed out that I… I was all right questioning General Skywalker's orders because I could see where her decision process was flawed. But I couldn't even see General Dooku's decision process."

"You actually _listened?_ " Slick sounds incredulous.

Rano rolls his eyes. "Of _course_ I listened, you made good points. Besides, I still had most of my network from the 63rd — all I had to do was start paying attention to it again."

"And what did you hear?" Shmi asks, her voice quiet. She feels… scattered. Lost, adrift, as if she could understand what was going on here if she were just strong enough to put together the pieces.

"I…" Rano looks away. "You should hear the full story, in order, of how I put it together. Otherwise…"

"Otherwise we might not believe it?" Hex scoffs. "If you can talk us around with a few words, why should we believe you anyways?"

Luna elbows Hex, then focuses her gaze on Rano. "Let's hear what he has to say. It's not gonna be good no matter what, is it?"

Rano shakes his head.

"Then tell us," Shmi says. She can feel Slick shift, his worried gaze going to her; Lock bites his lip. Surely her voice doesn't sound as distant as it feels.

"Sir," Rano says quietly. "Before I decided to stop passing on what I heard, I'd decided that I needed to be able to… listen in on you without you knowing, which was impossible to do in person. I… I'm… I'm sorry. I placed listening devices on most of your gear. I—"

"You _what_ —" Slick roars, and half-stands before he trips over the chair he'd been sitting on, ending up in a pile on the floor. "You—"

"Slick. That's enough." She wants to make herself be stone, impervious to all hurt, solid and unyielding, but she can't. It all keeps crumbling away to sand, to dust. "What's done is done. Rano, continue."

Rano nods. He's trying to make himself be calm, just like she is. "Sometimes I still listened in in person, so you wouldn't think I'd found another way to spy — but sometimes when I was listening to the bugs, you'd indicate that you thought I was spying in person. That meant that somebody else was also spying on you."

Shmi inhales sharply. Ventress. "How long—"

"A few months, on and off," he says. "Sh— They'd disappear some weeks, then be back others. But it's important that while I was looking into my old networks, doing all the research I could on all the other Jedi Generals, I was also trying to figure that out."

"And you were… listening in… up until now," Shmi says. "You heard…"

The tension in the room must be palpable; Hex shifts his balance back and forth, and Luna's eyes are darting around the room. Lock sits next to Rano, perfectly still.

Rano looks down. "Yes, sir."

"You might as well tell everyone here, then," she says. She certainly can't do it herself, not and keep from shaking apart.

"I… yes, sir." Rano glances over to Lock, then to Slick, who has picked himself up and sat back down on the chair. "Don't overreact. She's fine." Before Slick can open his mouth and ask for clarification, Rano continues. "When we met up with General Secura and the 327th, General Skywalker figured out that the other watcher has been Asajj Ventress, and they've been talking about Force stuff for the past couple of weeks, on and off."

"You're joking," Hex says.

Shmi shakes her head.

"Sir," Lock says, meeting her eyes. "Have you made sure you were safe, during these… talks?"

"As much as I could," she says. "As much as anyone could." Does Rano know about the vaapad? Would he even know what it meant, if he'd overheard her talk with Aayla?

"Fine," Slick says, throwing his arms up into the air. "Clearly we've lost control of every single aspect of this war. You might as well tell us the rest."

Rano is watching her, worried, but he does continue. "Early on, Ventress mentioned… a Shadow. Not an apprentice to Darth Vulsion, but… almost a mentor to her. Not the Sith Master, but someone else. The person who'd taught her and Grievous most of what they knew about lightsaber combat. She said that he'd show up sometimes, never more than a week at a time. He talks to Darth Vulsion often, they plot and plan…"

Shmi can't look at Rano, not if he's saying what she thinks he might be saying. Not if…

"More often during the beginning of the war," Rano says, "And less often now, General Dooku would go off on his own. On secret missions for the Jedi Council, he said, but my network's gossip should have been able to turn up _some_ details, and they hadn't. I got a friend to trace his ship, just in case, and every single time he's been going to the same planet."

"Let me guess," Luna says. "Somewhere near galactic coordinate P-5?"

Rano lowers his head, not meeting any of their eyes. "Yes. It's a Separatist-controlled planet in the D'Astan sector — Serenno."

"I see." Her voice sounds distant, to her own ears.

They all look at her, nearly the same expression on all their faces. Nearly the same expression, nearly the same faces.

"How quickly can we get there?"

Hex frowns. They're not near any major hyperspace lanes, so… "Just under twelve hours, sir."

"Shouldn't we, I don't know, check in with the other Jedi?" It's a mark of how concerned he is, that Slick is the one suggesting she check in. "Kenobi, at least?"

"No. We'll send them what we have, but begin prepping for the hyperspace jump now." If Obi-Wan knows — if Yoda knows — they'll say that somebody else should go. She doesn't want them to have to face all the legal issues that would arise when she went anyways; better to ask forgiveness than permission.

"Sir—"

" _Now_ ," Shmi says, her voice like durasteel. "I will be in the training salle. Meditating." She turns to go, then pauses, her hand on the doorframe. She should say something, to comfort them, to tell Rano she understood, to tell Lock she wasn't angry at them, to tell Slick she would be all right.

Without saying a word, she lets her hand fall, then continues out the door.

She can feel the whispers in the corridors, the rumors that have passed through the legion, the sense of urgency and determination. It's easy enough for her to avoid running into anyone she'll have to talk to, and when she gets to the training salle, it's empty.

Save for a small note written on flimsiplast, rolled up in the center of one of the mats.

_Thank you for your advice,_ it reads. _I will do my best to avoid coming into conflict with you or your Jedi. Good luck. — A.V._

It's probably a good thing that Ventress is gone, and Darth Zannah with her, Shmi realizes. A direct confrontation between Ventress and Vulsion, or her and… Well, a direct confrontation could get messy.

As she ignites her lightsaber and begins the first kata of the vaapad, she can feel the ship's engines rumble to life, ready to make the jump to hyperspace.

Next stop, Serenno.

 

* * *

 

 

Bo Katan Kryze can hear her own heartbeat, thudding through her skull. Even though she knows that it can't be audible to anyone but her, it still sounds loud enough to give her away.

"Search the area," she can hear the Shadow say, through one of the others' comms. Maybe Kurshi's; having the visor cracked and her skull bashed in didn't mean that the entire helmet stopped working, and it would break the soundproofing.

Whoever this not-Jedi is, he knows how to fight Mandalorians. Bo Katan keeps on the move. She can't risk making any calls, in case the Shadow is able to trace the signal's origin straight back to her, and there's not even a guarantee that the call would go through. It seems like her only chance is to escape. But…

But any exits will undoubtedly be trapped, and she can't cut through the wall on her own.

But this man has killed her siblings-in-arms, and she can't let that go unpunished.

But Sarad is still captured, and Bo Katan can't just leave her here to be interrogated.

Sarad would want her to be safe, however much that isn't the Mando'a way. Sarad would want her to get the information that Bo has to someone who can do something about it. Vos may have been a Jedi, but he'd been a useful one, not a stick-in-the-mud; Bo Katan may not owe him vengeance, the way she does owe Kurshi, Nad'aai, Aln, and Jorad, but she does owe him the right to a useful death. That Darth Vulsion had been a Jedi padawan… he had spent his life to discover that, and she owes it to him not to throw that value away.

If she can manage it, of course.

"Keep your sensors on the ceilings and don't forget to check the alcoves," the Shadow continues, distantly audible through her friends' comms. "When you are destroyed or incapacitated, send out a beacon; do likewise if you so much as catch a glimpse of her armor."

"Roger, roger," the battle-droids chorus.

Bo Katan grimaces. Her armor will block most biometric sensors, but it won't block a battle-droid's direct scan. She's going to have to find some way to escape, quickly, or she's going to have to find some way to hide. As tricky as escaping would be, hiding would be even harder —but Bo Katan can't think of a way to do either, and she's smart enough to realize that going down fighting battle-droids would be useless.

It feels like she's suffocating, but she forces herself to keep breathing, her heart still pounding through her bones.

"Hey! What's that?"

Bo Katan automatically ducks down and around into the next hallway, scanning what's in it, sprinting over and curling up behind a pedestal holding a staff that occasionally sparks and flickers with purple energy.

The battle-droids walk past her.

"I don't see anything," one says. "It was probably just discharge from the electro-staff."

"I guess," the other one says. "I wish they upgraded our optical sensors more often."

Bo Katan doesn't start breathing again until they're gone, their clanking footsteps turned down another hallway. Hiding here will work for a time, but isn't a permanent solution.

Especially not if the Shadow himself starts searching — after all, Jedi can sense the presence of living beings, or so she's heard.

But staying here for a few minutes will allow her to gather her thoughts, maybe come up with a concrete plan. She can't hide forever, and she can't escape. But if she can make her way to the center of this palace of horrors, she may be able to find the computer that runs the whole building; she may be able to deactivate traps or alarms, and she may be able to send out a message from there.

The bulk of the fortress is to the north, and more likely to contain central data hubs and terminals. The layout of the corridors, their twists and turns, isn't too illogical. If this building had originally been a hideout, it would have been much harder to get anywhere, but Bo Katan guesses that it was originally what it looks like — some sort of palace or retreat. The floorplan is needlessly complicated, but not illogical; if she starts heading north, that's likely the direction she'll end up going, rather than the hallways forcing her to walk around through a maze of twists and turns.

Two corridors down from where Bo Katan is hiding behind the sparking electro-staff, there's a flickering hologram of what looks like a riot; she listens for a long moment, hears no footsteps, then sprints the distance, coming to a rest just behind the holoprojector. She won't be able to continue this forever, but it's a step in the right direction.

Bo Katan keeps moving like that, run and hide and freeze and run again, for… ages. A couple of hours, according to her helmet's chronometer, but it feels like much longer. She moves closer and closer to the central data hub, or at least where she hopes the central data hub is; this might all still be for nothing if it ends up being somewhere else in the fortress.

Finally, she comes to a corridor that looks different. The door at the end is shiny chrome, not the dull stone or wood that other doors have been; the hallway leading to it is almost empty, only a few trophies sitting along it. The lighting makes shadows stretch, long and sharp against the light.

Bo Katan ducks behind one trophy, a shadowed metal obelisk just a little larger than a man, and hears footsteps. She shuts off her suit's external lights, then tells herself not to panic. Panic will make it even easier for this not-Jedi to find her; she needs to… she needs to breathe. Make herself a stone, make herself a shield of beskar iron for her mind, like Vos had tried to teach them all, just in case.

She remembers being young, not more than eight standard, listening to her father sing the old battle-songs. He'd warned her that those days were over, of course. He'd said that in a perfect world nobody would need to go to war, but Bo Katan still remembers the way her mind had gone quiet and calm, listening to the rhythm of the battle-songs, the thumping beat that matched her heart, the clarity it brought her.

She wraps that feeling around her, then thinks very clearly, _there's nobody looking to fight here. You're looking for a mandalorian warrior rampaging through your base; she is not here._

It must work, because the Shadow doesn't find her; but he still slows as he passes the obelisk, his footsteps coming to a quiet yet echoing halt.

Then he sighs, and moves on.

Bo Katan breathes, and keeps her mind quiet until the chrome door at the end of the hallway slides open and shut again, and all is quiet. She forces herself to stay calm; she still has a job to do.

But she can't go through that door now, not with the Shadow just having passed through it; she has no way of knowing whether he's just on the other side, if she'll open it and see him standing there, waiting.

As bad as an idea it is, she stands and starts pacing, up and down the shadowy corridor. She'll hear if any battle-droids start coming; she won't know in advance if the not-Jedi decides to walk back this way, but if he returns she's dead anyways. Bo Katan needs to think, and to think she needs to be moving.

The not-Jedi was interested in that obelisk, she thinks on her fourth turn. He hadn't sensed her; if he'd suspected anything, he would have checked more thoroughly. He didn't check more thoroughly, so he must have had some other reason for stopping in front of the obelisk.

Bo Katan turns, walks down the hallway, and stops where he'd stopped — staring down at the chrome door, right beside the dark metal of the obelisk. There might be a sensor at this spot, opening the door for people who know where to stop. If there is, Bo Katan hasn't activated it. She glances to the side, to one blank wall, then to the other side, at the trophy she'd hidden behind, then freezes.

The obelisk's face is shadowed, but outlined by those shadows is a human face.

A face with an expression of pain on its face. With long hair, a strong nose, Jedi robes… no lightsaber at its belt, but there looks like an empty clip for one.

What she'd thought was simple metal is carbonite, and there's a Jedi frozen in it.

Before Bo Katan can think about all the reasons it's a bad idea, she's already at the control panel, pressing the sequence that will free the Jedi. The carbonite glows red, and she waits, half-sure that alarms will start blaring, but nothing happens as the Jedi slowly gasps and shakes free. Whoever froze him in here probably didn't expect that they'd need something to alert them about his escape; otherwise there would be lights flashing, alarms blaring, droids converging on their location. That, or it's a silent alarm and they're screwed.

As soon as the Jedi is fully free of the carbonite, Bo Katan grabs his arm and pulls him to his feet.

"Quiet," she hisses. "I don't know who you are or why you're here, but I'm breaking out and I can't do it by myself. Are you carbon-sick?"

The Jedi's shaking suggests that he's carbon-sick, but he shakes his head. "I… will be fine. In a few moments."

"We may not have a few moments," Bo Katan says quietly. "I don't know if I set off any alarms getting you out of there. Can you… do the Jedi thing?"

"The… Jedi thing?" He huffs out a quiet laugh. "Which one?"

"Telling where people are. Or that people are there, I guess. Whatever. Are there other people coming this way?"

"No," he says. "That is, I can sense people, but reasonably far away, and not moving towards us. I hear no droids coming. May I _please_ sit down?"

"I… sure," Bo Katan says, and lets go of his arm.

What he does is more _falling_ than _sitting_ , but it does end with him on the ground and his legs crossed. "All right," he says, and takes a deep breath. Bo Katan waits as he inhales slowly, then exhales just as slowly. When he opens his eyes, they're a clear blue. "Who are you, and why are you here rescuing me?"

Bo Katan stumbles through a brief summary — following Sarad, working to dismantle the Bando Gora, Sarad's Jedi connections, coming here with Vos, running and hiding and finding this Jedi. All the time she's talking, she keeps an ear out for the sound of droid footsteps, but none come near.

"I see," the Jedi says at the end, folding his still-shaking hands on his lap. Something about him seems almost sad. "And, again, who are you?"

"Bo Katan," she says, and scowls beneath her helmet. He'd better not ask for a surname; she hasn't given one in years.

To her surprise, the Jedi smiles. "Ah," he says. "I see — and no wonder you don't recognize me, it's been quite a while."

Bo Katan takes a step back, trying to think about where she could have met him, but nothing comes to mind. "I don't know any Jedi." She'd count Vos, maybe, if he weren't dead.

"Of course not," he says, inclining his head. "And perhaps that's my fault. My name is Qui-Gon Jinn. Now…" he stands smoothly, and continues talking while Bo Katan still has no idea how to reply to _that_ , when the last time she saw him was also the last time she saw Satine, back when she'd still called herself _Bo-Katan Kryze_. But he just keeps talking, as if none of that history matters — and she supposes it doesn't, not now, when they both have much more imminent and deadly problems. "I doubt we'll be able to continue undiscovered for long. Let's go see what we can find, shall we?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The first chapter of the next fic in the series will (hopefully) be up in a couple of weeks! That fic will be the final part of the main storyline. Unless something goes wrong. [yoda voice] have some patience, hmmm? ;) 
> 
> (In case it's not clear by this point, I've been completely winging this the whole time)
> 
> I can't believe how long it's been since I started writing this; my goal is to have this finished by mid-summer-ish, and we'll see how that goes! I'm finishing up my junior year of college and it is kicking my ass, and I _still_ don't know what I'll be doing over the summer... which, uh, means I might be writing a lot, I guess! 
> 
> Thank you so much, all of you, for all your wonderful comments - every one brightens my day.

**Author's Note:**

> As always, I'm on [tumblr](http://mirandatam.tumblr.com)!


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